


Up In Flames

by Samsam4short



Series: Eternal Flame [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: All of the Swearing, Angst, Bisexual main character, Casual Sex, Depression, Destiny, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jealousy, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers, Loneliness, Lots of speculation, Magic, Mental Breakdown, Morally Ambiguous Character, Multi, Multiple Partners, Nightmares, Not canon compliant anymore, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, Panic Attacks, Possessive Behavior, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prophecy, Self-Destruction, Smut, Soulmates, Suicidal Thoughts, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, here are all of my theories basically, light and dark, lot more disney in this one, not re:mind compliant, this is going to hurt, this one gets pretty dark friends, villain origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:07:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 68
Words: 403,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samsam4short/pseuds/Samsam4short
Summary: Alone the Alchemist will stand, and in the twilight, hear the call. To meet the light's endless demand, or in the darkness watch them fall.((Updates Wednesdays and Sundays . Sequel to 'Let It Burn' and 'From The Ashes', post KH3))
Relationships: A lot more to come - Relationship, Axel (Kingdom Hearts)/Original Character(s), Axel (Kingdom Hearts)/Original Female Character(s), Demyx/Larxene (Kingdom Hearts), Honestly just lots of ships in this one, Kairi/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Lea (Kingdom Hearts)/Original Character(s), Lea (Kingdom Hearts)/Original Female Character(s), Roxas/Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Vanitas/Original Character, Xigbar (Kingdom Hearts)/Original Character(s)
Series: Eternal Flame [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1285385
Comments: 214
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue:

My lover stands beside me with his blade at hand and magma in his eyes.

Gritted teeth, sharp, feral, canine. Long fingers, cunning, impossible.

My blade smashes into his again and again, too fast, unrelenting. The sound of metal crashing into metal fills my ears, rings in my brain, throbs into my temples. Though he’s quick and infinitely more experienced, I have gas in the tank for days and blood dried beneath my splintered fingernails. Still, I don’t know what winning this fight is supposed to look like.

We are both disgusting creatures, pummeling each other. He lands a blow that dislocates my shoulder, but I throw the weight of my entire body forward, biting into the flesh of his arm until my teeth touch.

This could have been so good. We could have been happy if every fiber in my body hadn’t threatened to pull itself apart. 

Soot rains rains down into his hair, into my eyes as I struggle to stand from where we have crashed into the ground.

The set of his jaw screams at me over the sound of too many blades clashing. ‘You fucked up’.

And I know, oh how I know. But the fact of the matter is that I just couldn’t--

I can’t--

I’m not going to watch the ones I love die anymore.

A blade comes hurtling past me, whizzing, crackling through the air, I flip, grabbing for my shoulder behind my back as it pops into place. Just as my lover sits up, the blade crashes into him and he roars. 

The blade sails back into the hands of its owner. I meet her eyes, thick lashes, fair skin, pink lips. This ends with her, I think. She needs to be the one, she needs to put me down like the creaking, devouring monster that I have become if this all fails.

Rabid dog, vampire, ghoul. I scarcely recognize myself.

She clenches her jaw, taking a menacing step to my aid, but another blade finds hers, snakes and ladders.

My lover’s blade wheels around and takes me straight to the ground, my head reverberating as it pounds into the pavement.

More soot, more ashes.

I could incinerate this goddamn town and not regret a second of it.

In the decay around me, I trace a glyph and slap my hand into it. The scene goes bright as I spread ruin like disease, infecting the area around me with explosives and destruction.

A pair of hands hoist me up, someone presses their back to mine.

I know the end is nigh, but this time, it will be at my hand, this time, I am the one with the power, my hand is on the switch,

My lover’s gaze meets mine. 

Not a bit of this could ever be the same, my betrayal will soil him eternally. I draw my blade back, he does the same and the two of us charge. 

I clash with my lover and this does not end in fairytales, in promises or destiny.

It ends only when my blade pierces him all the way through.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So obviously I posted two chapters today. We've got two more coming on actual Sunday, and then from there on out, we'll get into the once weekly updates, sound good?

I.

Caught in the debris of my own life, I wonder how many times I am expected to whether the storm of my own circumstances. 

Once upon a time, this was supposed to be a gift, a privilege. The empathy link was mine to control, to stretch beyond limits, a godlike ability. Now, with this blessing as my anchor, I watch the seconds tick by on my palm like a pulse, unsure if death is still supposed to register the same shock value after all this time. 

27:59, 27:58, 27:57

Everyone scrambles around me, so loud, Roxas shouting questions that I’m too detached to answer, his hand still wrapped around my wrist. Lea rubs his hands together, cards them through his hair, nearly bounces up and down, limbs trembling with pent up energy as he paces. In this state, I’m nearly certain that I can see his heart outright hammering in his chest. He mutters reassurances to himself, calculates plans that derail so abruptly that he nearly tears fistfulls of hair out. Kairi is all but whimpering, sobbing so violently that her shoulders vibrate. Riku grasps her frame in tight hands, but it doesn’t help her breakdown in the slightest. She can’t seem to formulate words, beyond the odd hysterical apology. Amaya and Del are so confused and so out of the loop, it’s all just tugging at sleeves and unimportant inquiries. 

Everything is a whirlwind, but I’m a hurricane. Funny how the direction of the story changes when I take the pen into my own hand.

Roxas releases me, shaking his head at too many memories that I push through him, through Xion, through Ventus. They’re all a lot less steady, but the weight on my shoulders lets up so nicely.

“Rueki.” My name comes from an airy voice. There’s a likelihood I would not have not have noticed Naminé’s appearance in front of me had she not spoke up. I am equal parts hyper aware of my surroundings and so detached from reality. I see the strobing of lights from billboards and the soft sand by the shore. I see damp pavement and paopu fruits, I see everyone I love standing before me and a sparse, vacant city. Everything is happening, but I am too far removed to process anything, even my death sentence. 

“I’m going to die.” I repeat myself, voice a monotone as my eyes find hers. She reaches forward and squeezes my hand. 

“If you don’t act quickly, you may. I know what you’re seeing, and as I’m sure you’ve realized, your connection with Sora is reformed but...faint.” She reminds me. “Neither of you are safe in two different realms. You’ll just keep pushing and pulling.”

“He won’t be able to fight.” I conclude.

“And you won’t be able to save him.” It’s cute, I think, how she still so thoroughly trusts me with the boy’s fate, when after Kairi’s disappearance I was the one who urged him to follow. 

“No one’s just gonna let me… No one will…” None of my friends are going to sit idly by while I take my own life, no matter what the payoff may be, and even then, am I truly that big of a masochist? As dissociated as I am, it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal. I’m just flesh and blood and bone and so easily broken, why should I not use that to my advantage? When all I am can be a weapon, why would I not want to be?

Xigbar’s voice rings in my head, through my veins. I’m made for these sorts of things. I know what to do. Staring Namine directly in the eye, blue meeting green, I understand my responsibility and my absolution. 

“You were never truly recompleted.” I say. “You didn’t die.” 

“That’s correct.” She agrees, the tiniest, most impish smile spreading across her features. Not for the first time, I think she looks otherworldly, omniscient, a clever little fox. This thing she gave me is a gift; no matter the cost I can still benefit, I can still come out on top. Immediately, like riding a bike, strategies begin bubbling in my mind, a second nature. Where to begin, how to get out, the path from the Scramble Crossing to the 104 building. 

“You’ll do this for me?” I ask.

“I’m gifting you another burden.” Her impish look turns into the saddest of smiles. 

“I’ll bring him home.” And it’s not a sense of cockiness that I feel, but a sense of power, a feeling of control. My muscles unwind deliciously. Something inside of me dusts itself off and comes back to life, it steps into the lantern of my heart and is ablaze. I will bring this boy home. Logic, reason, past experience, this time, they’re on my side. This time, it’s just a week of playing a game. There is no one I trust more in terms of combat than Sora.

“Then I’ll act as your informant.” She agrees.

“Tell Lea I love him.” I urge. And with that, she waves her hand and opens a portal beneath me.

I fall for days, I fall for lifetimes, I fall alone, accompanied only by anxieties that creep and crawl like Shadows through the channels of my heart. Buildings come into view, and my reflex is to brace myself for landing. With a clenched jaw and held breath, I pinch my eyes shut, but just as quickly as they close, they fly open. I am not the girl I was the last time I was here.

“Gravia!” I cry out and a fat load of nothing happens. 

Instead, I crash into the ground with every bit the lack of grace I did the first time Axel dropped me into this world. 

My name is screamed from the fading portal above me.

Close quickly, I plead. I can imagine the chaos, the utter disaster that would’ve happened if I had to relay to a massive group of people with too large of hearts, the mission I must undertake. Someone would have begged to join me. Maybe multiple someones. And while I trust my friends and know most of them are more than equipped for combat, everyone is a liability. Everyone is someone I care too much for, to the point I would easily lose myself and therefore Sora as well, to protect them. Maybe I’m the liability, but this time duty weighs out and I’m thankful that Naminé always has understood. Even when I couldn’t.

I touch down in the Scramble Crossing, of this I’m not surprised, but what does throw me is how barren the streets are. Glistening in the moonlight, I am reminded so much of Transmute City at night. Beautiful and abandoned. Music plays gently from the speakers of a closed storefront.

‘Lucky me  
Destiny  
You are on my side  
Just once more unto the breach  
Dear friend once more’

Even Sora is absent. I close my eyes, trying to zone in on my heart, trying to focus on the admittedly faint link, praying it doesn’t blink out. There is a brief moment of panic at the prospect that Taboo Noise may be pawns in this game and that my partner may not have a chance, but then--

Flashes of visions just out of my reach, a mug of something steaming--

Wildkat! Vaguely I recall the path, and take off into a sprint, legs moving swiftly and somehow not fast enough. I feel clumsy, almost as though I am toppling over something but my movements remain fluid. Something is wrong, something is very wrong. 

The world is eerily silent, a ghost town beyond the street signs that flash for no one and the music that echoes in empty melodies, against the puddles in pavement, through me. My timed hand trembles as I stop at the edge of the Scramble and fumble through my pocket. It’s an odd theory, I’ve got nothing to back it, but this is a far cry from my memories of Shibuya. It’s just too damn quiet. I nearly sigh in relief when I feel a cool, tiny disk in the same pocket that the Thalassa shell resides in. I squeeze the pin tight in my palm and close my eyes, trying to sense, to feel something.

Are there even any Noise?

But when I close my eyes, not only do I not see the telltale jerking of the Noise insignia, I don’t see anything. My eyes pop back open, my mouth contorts and I pull the pin from my pocket. Maybe it’s the wrong pin? Maybe it’s--

I shove my opposite fist into my mouth to hold back the scream that threatens to tear from my throat.

No wonder I couldn’t scan.

The timer on my hand throbs with each passing second.

I have no Player Pin, no way of scanning for Noise. Instead, in its place, is a cerulean pin with a reptilian, pupil like slit in the middle.

The same odd eye from my Station of Awakening.

I count breaths on the inhale, willing myself to focus on anything other than fear, than panic. I have no confirmation that something terrible is going to happen, nothing to back that this is a fate worse than death. All I have are my shaky breaths and this hollow, reverberating music. I can stay calm long enough to find Sora, to see if maybe my partner is the key to making my Player Pin appear. Or mission mail, or Noise, or honestly anything that makes sense and doesn’t just leave me, the lone figure on a rainy night, struggling with a reality she clearly doesn’t belong in. 

I take a step and--

And the sound echoes, loud, like banging a gong, but somehow quiet and sluggish simultaneously. 

There’s something wrong with Shibuya, but what bothers me most is the familiarity of this blemish. It’s Traverse Town with Sora, Neku, Shiki and Joshua. It’s Xigbar’s voice echoing and encouraging me to find Kairi. It’s Naminé, Xion, Roxas, Aqua, Terra and Ventus calling to Sora’s heart in The World That Never Was.

I look around at the ads on the billboards, half in a language I know, the other half in some dead, ancient language that I vaguely recognize from alchemy and magic books. Again, my eyes look to the pin in my hand, a depiction of an eye I have only seen in the deepest levels of my own subconscious.

Oh dear Twilight. Sora isn’t dead.

“Fuck.” I whisper, eyes searching desperately for the portal Naminé dropped me from. I pray to anything that might listen, to fucking Joshua, that the thing is still open. Without magic, surely I won’t be able to propel myself into it, but there’s gotta be a way, something. Someone I can scream to. 

But the night sky above me is pitch black, swirling with darkness that is not traversable. 

I shove the ominous pin back into my pocket, reach for my Gummi Phone and type up a message as fast as I can.

To: Lea  
From: Me  
Sora’s not dead, he’s in a sleeping world and can’t wake, send Riku to Shibuya!

I slam my thumb onto the send button and am met, almost instantly with a notification alerting me that my message failed to send. Fuck. Shit. Damn.

It’s as though the realization has torn my heart open, and suddenly, Sora’s memories flood me. Even without him beside me, I drown in his reality. Saving Kairi, rewriting our battles in the Keyblade Graveyard, altering reality again and again and again--and I don’t know how I can separate the original reality from all of Sora’s simulations, but somehow I can-- until his body, heart and mind cannot take it. With the last bit of his own consciousness, he spits Kairi out on the Island, with all of us.

Time passes differently in death. In the moments I stood on the Island, contemplating my own mortality, holding Kairi, Sora endured. Hand plucked by Joshua himself, Sora and Neku played some sort of penalty game. I recognize Kariya and Uzuki and even Math Mouth, the GM from the week Axel and I spent here. I don’t recognize the little girl who looks like the human embodiment of cotton candy, but I do understand that she was not on their side. I watch timers expire on the boys hands before they can complete their mission. I watch Neku drop to his knees and sob, apologizing to Shiki and Beat and Rhyme. I watch Joshua’s glow extinguish as he gazes upon his own dull hands with horrified eyes. Sora is all confusion and hammering heart beats, but he seems to understand as the sun in the world blinks out altogether. 

Whatever these boys set out to do they failed, and now they're here, trapped.

Now I’m here, trapped.

My eyes dart back to my palm as I wonder frantically, what the fuck I’m supposed to do with this, if I can’t get Noise to appear, if there’s no mission mail to recieve, if I have no partner, if--

“Took an arm and a leg to get you here, didn’t it? Bet you appreciate the equivalence though, Alchemist.” The voice recites my title, almost reverently, with the sweetest amount of awe.

For a moment, I’m certain I know who it belongs to, and sick as it is, if Xigbar is here, I at least know how to work him. I know that he’s got an odd sort of fixation with me and if I make the right offer, his obscure knowledge will, I’m sure, be able to return us home.

But I spin around and find a figure under the awning of a deserted building, and though it dons the same heavy hooded trench coat, I realize this certainly isn’t Xigbar. The voice is just a little higher, a little smoother, no shrapnel grating. 

No, this voice is familiar, but not because of a man who has spent too much time on my mind already. This voice is familiar because of what’s inside of me, the eye in my heart, on that pin 

‘My gift to you, Luxu’.

I consider the hooded man through the dark, through the strobing lights, through the mist.

“What are you?” I whisper, voice low and cautious, and though I cannot see his expression, I’m nearly certain he can hear me. The man chuckles, pushing himself away from the building with the shove of his shoulders. He takes a step toward me that feels a lot like a monster creeping out from under the bed.

But I’m not a child and this isn’t a fairy tale. I don’t need to be a hero to slay monsters.

With the flick of my wrists, I beg La Luxure to my hands. I’m met with utter nothingness. My mouth goes dry and I fight the urge to curse aloud. Okay, this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. Sure, I’ve got absolutely nothing as far as synthesis items go, no weapons, no magic, absolutely nothing to defend myself. But I’m not utterly useless as far as hand to hand goes. It’s not like I’ve spent the past year sitting around doing absolutely fucking nothing.

Ha. 

I’m so fucked.

The man is close enough now to reach out and grab my hand, flipping my timed palm face up as he does.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” I snap, making a move to jerk my arm away, but his grip is a vice around my wrist. He doesn’t even struggle to pull back, all he does is click his tongue and wave a hand over mine. As he does, the timer disappears. My mouth is dry as parchment. 

“Cool trick, huh? Had to line a lot of pieces up. Can’t tell you how many times this all went wrong, but look at you. In the flesh. You have any idea how long I’ve waited for this?” He asks me, with all the pride of a father. He grabs me by the tops of my arms and I make a small grunting noise as I’m pushed back for him to look over, like a slice of meat. Instantly, I see red, so I slam my knee up, aiming right between his legs. As though he can predict my movements, he loops a leg around my standing one and yanks. I hit the ground, vision sputtering with white spots as I struggle to chase the wind knocked from me. 

“I can tell you’re not human, I’m not dumb.” I wheeze, pinching my eyes shut as I struggle to push myself back up on my palms. My eyes flutter back open and the man is crouched down, face dangerously close to mine, though I still cannot see his obscured features. That pisses me off especially, so I grab at the fabric of his hood and tug back. He catches the leather of the coat before I can expose him, and chuckles.

“Curiosity killed the cat, sugar.” He pats my cheek, condescendingly. “Bet you’ve got a million questions.”

“Fuck you.” Is my very lackluster reply, but for what I cannot muster in creativity, I more than make up for in venom. “I don’t need a damn weapon to kill you.” And with that, I lunge, snapping forward, closing my hands around the man’s throat as we tumble back just in time for--

Just in time for me to end up on my hands and knees, soaking from the rain and the damp pavement, with no one beneath me. 

Whoever this fucking bastard is, whatever he did to lure me here is not something that gets explained away, not when I was safe, not when I was happy. Not when Sora wasn't even waiting for me. Is he even here? Or is this my lone prison?

“Hey, I get it, for you to be who you are, you’ve gotta be a fighter, but some child like reverence would be nice.” The man’s voice tsks from behind me. “I mean, you chased after the light, I need to collect it, we both wanna get rid of the darkness, we’re on the same side.”

“I don’t care how you know what you know about me, but we’re not on the same side.” I shake my head, wet, matted hair whipping from side to side as it hangs like a curtain around my face.

“Even if I told you I'm the reason you get to come here and save the little hero?” The man asks. My eyes widen, every muscle in my body tenses as I push myself to my feet.

“Where is he? And I swear if you laid a fucking finger on him--”

“Sugar, when you’ve been around as long as I have, the threats game gets a little tired. I know it’s real hard for your kind, but let’s try to think before we act? Sound good? Sound like something you can do?” He asks. My blood could absolutely boil. It’s the throne room where I’m made a spectacle again, it’s me eating my words as my actions make me into some idiotic, demented animal, meant for a man in a trench coat’s amusement. 

“I want to know where Sora is. That’s all.” I say, in chopped words, through gritted teeth. 

“Him and your grumpy friend are at some cafe with some other guys.” The man waves his hand. Cafe, fine, that I can work with. I can scarcely recall the path to Cat Street, but I start back on it anyway, praying Sora’s heart pulls me where I need it to. “And after all that, you’re not even gonna ask my name? That hurts!” I turn around and the man has a hand on his heart, as though I have genuinely wounded him.

“Is it Luxu?” I murmur, voice dipping low again, but he certainly hears me, because he howls out laughing.

“Oh no, not me. That’ll be a fun little surprise for you.” He chuckles. If I rolled my eyes any harder, it would shatter the already shaky structure of this world. 

“But you’re the one that brought me here.” I mutter, disdain gripping my tone.

“Oh no, no one brought you here. Well, I mean, whoever got you here did their job. I just had to line up some pieces, make sure you made your way here.” The man tells me. I press my lips into a frown as I narrow my eyes at him. I hate that all I have is speculation, nothing concrete to latch onto. The man is dodgy as all hell and even in a safe location, being beside him would grate my nerves in the worst of ways.

“Why me?” I ask, not wailing for sympathy, but rather just curious. Here’s a test I think, how forthcoming is this asshole going to be? I know the cardinal rule of this world but everything he radiates sets off alarms in my head. I wear no obscuring rose colored glasses, I recognize a red flag when I see it. 

And it's not like we have timers binding is in the first place.

He shrugs breezily, finding his way to me, past me, toward the path to Wildkat. He tilts his head upward, looks to the sky and shakes his head.

“Cuz you’re the only one who can put the pieces together.” He says. “Alone the Alchemist will stand, and in the twilight, hear the call. To meet the light’s endless demand, or in the darkness watch them fall.”

I feel his words echo into me, feel them in my bones, in my veins, they pump like a song, blasted on repeat in my head.

‘Calling, someone is calling’.

I lick my chapped lips, curling and uncurling my palms in an effort to displace the sinking feeling of anxiety as it twists around me. Why am I so convinced that his words are fragments, a small part of something much larger? A mere verse, a passage in a book.

“There are a lot of alchemists.” I say, because I am only one in the grand scheme of many. It’s a dying form of science, but through the passage of time, in the creation of Transmute City, alchemists were plentiful. I’m a bad attitude, a foul mouth and disillusion. “You wanted child like wonder, you chose the wrong one.”

“I don’t make mistakes.” He says flatly. “I’ve watched this play out tens of thousands of times. It’s you, Rueki.” He assures me. With narrowed eyes, I look at him, feeling exposed and at a disadvantage in the worst of ways.

“Who are you?” I ask, despite not wanting to, despite not wanting to waste any more time with this man who has certainly played a role in trapping me here, and for his own twisted gain. 

“I’m the Master of Masters.” He tells me, as though this answers everything. I wrinkle my nose and scoff.

“If you gave yourself that title, you should’ve opted for ‘Douche Lord’ instead. Conveys about the same.” I offer a petty, tight lipped smile. The Master of Masters chuckles and strides over, patting me on the cheek once more.

“You humans are as good as toddlers. All of you.”


	3. Chapter 3

II.

Joshua is halfway through a pot of coffee, the heel of his hand pressed into one of his eyes as he hums the tune I traveled in to.

Calling, someone is calling.

“The cat dragged in a friend for you, Neku dearest.” The ashy haired boy mutters as the Master and I find our way through the door to Wildkat. Joshua, unlike Sora and Neku, does not turn, and I don’t even question how he knows I’m here to see Neku, but I don’t particularly care. I stare with my mouth parted at the two boys and their too tired, too sunken in eyes. Neku, I haven’t seen in years now, but Sora?

“Kid…” I breathe.

“Rueki!” He cries out, scuttling to his feet, nearly knocking me over as he throws his arms around me. I meet him back with equal enthusiasm, snaring my arms around him as I press my head into his chest. “What are you doing here?” He balks and I snort. Because the answer should be that his big, stupid, dumb dumb heart brought me here and I can’t ignore the call. But--

“It’s a stupid complicated mess.” I mumble, squeezing him, even as he pulls away from me. His eyes instantly go from me to the man beside me, the Master of Masters. And Sora is delightfully defensive, shoulders tensing as he looks at the black coat. The kid is wonderfully predictable.

“Who are you?” Sora asks.

“The best of a bad situation.” I answer, because there’s got to be something for keeping my friends close and my enemies closer. 

“Ouch, got some teeth on you, don’t you sugar?” The Master whines as he pats my head. Fucking condescending dick bag. “I’m the Master of Masters, ancient Keyblade wielder, creator of the original Keyblade, savior who blessed many with the power of the Keyblade, seeker of light, enemy to all things dark. You are Sora. It’s nice to meet you, I’m a fan of your work, big fan actually.” The Master extends a hand. Sora blanches, looking to me for affirmation one way or the other. I heave a sigh.

“I dunno, kid, I’m still hoping this is some sort of hallucination. Regardless, we’re all trapped here, so maiming is off the table for the time being.” I mutter.

“Not that this one didn’t try.” And again, the Master is a bit too touchy, ruffling my hair as though I am his child and an utter scamp at that. “But hey, when none of us can summon weapons, what are you going to do?” 

“Could we not fucking touch?” I jerk away, hair already a matted mess without his help.

“Oh, don’t stand in the door like a group of tourists. Mr. H is warming up some soup now.” Joshua orders, finally cutting in without even turning to look at us. Instead he flags us in with the wave of his hand as I consider just how odd a group ‘us’ consists of. Me, the boy whose heart beckoned me into a cell, my dead friend and--

And a man in a cloak who refers to himself exclusively as ‘The Master of Masters’.

“What kind of soup?” Sora all but abandons his issue with a man who assures him that he’s a good guy, meanwhile, I piece together these little nuggets of information, these little scraps I’m being offered. They’re certainly not much, but I’ll take what I can get. Lea isn’t here, and we are undoubtedly stuck for the time being, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still grit and desperate determination fueling me. And when I make my way home to him, when Sora wakes this world the way he has done before, I will need every last bit of information to give to him and unfortunately, Isa. I can grant those two this, their ability to scheme successfully on minimal information is impressive. 

The Master follows after Sora, offering suave compliments about Sora’s ability to detect light and dark and his sense of right and wrong, and even I can understand how it would be easy to fall to someone who sings praises a mile a minute. But I’m a lot more concerned about the ginger haired boy who hasn’t taken his eyes off of me.

“No pajamas this time.” I offer him. He doesn’t even so much as snort.

“You’re drenched.” He replies, in a voice void of life. I take a few steps toward him and seize his hand as I climb onto the barstool beside him. “I wish you weren’t here.” He barely whispers.

“I know. I saw everything. I know what this is. But it’s different. Sora’s woken sleeping worlds before.” I say. Neku, however, just shakes his head.

Sanae Hanekoma whistles as he exits the back room, a stark contrast to Joshua’s blatant moping and I don’t even need to hear him speak to recall him lecturing Neku and I about how survival should enhance and not inhibit. 

“So you’re the man with the plan?” The Master rubs his hands together as Sanae starts dishing soup into bowls, barely looking at any of us.

Sanae looks up from beneath his indoor sunglasses, smirk untouched by the present situation, not that I'm surprised. He looks over the Master, then me.

“You look like shit.” He tells me. I snort.

“Yep.” Cuz he's not wrong.

“What is it with you and men in black coats?” Sanae asks.

“I attract inhuman assholes.” I say, shoving a hand into my pocket. “Can I just get some coffee?” 

“Cream or sugar?” 

“I’d really rather it be barely drinkable.” I say.

“Are we really not talking about the fact that you just said he wasn’t human and no one reacted?” Neku lifts an eyebrow.

“She wasn’t human when you first met her.” Sanae shrugs.

“If she can’t figure out how to tell the difference at this point, she’s a lost cause.” Joshua waves a hand, flourishing his fingers.

Sora narrows his eyes, turning to the Master, mouth pressed together in what I’m sure he thinks is a very calculating look. He reminds me rather of a puppy. 

“Are you a Nobody?” He asks.

“No, definitely a Somebody.” The Master replies.

“Okay, moving forward, can we maybe go over the fact that Sora hasn’t woken this world up yet? Like kid, I know you’ve woken sleeping worlds before, what’s going on?” I ask.

“In case you missed it, the world is on lockdown.” Joshua mumbles, drearily. 

“More specifically, Shibuya isn’t like every world.” Hanekoma says. “It exists on two planes simultaneously and is normally exempt from most of the magic your world sees on the regular. It takes a lot to shut down a world like this, with its own system of rules outside of light and dark.”

“Like a penalty game that is colossally botched up.” Joshua takes a sip from his coffee. “This is worse than the last cup, could we at least try, Mr. H?” 

“Don’t give any of us attitude because you pissed off a higher up. I’m the one sticking around to keep you company.” Sanae reminds the boy with narrowed eyes.

“This have something to do with that long game you were playing?” I ask, not even trying to hide my defensive tone. Because Joshua and Neku might be fine, but at the end of the day, Neku and Shiki are my friends and Joshua is a strange creature who has toyed with them one too many times. 

“Mortality has your sense of time stunted. That was ages ago for us.” Joshua snorts, derisively.

“So, you’re a special sort of cunt, hmm?” I ask. Joshua rolls his eyes dramatically.

“My world is a prison and I’ve been stripped of my usual powers. Forgive me for not indulging your need for hospitality.” The ashy haired boy seethes.

“Look, we can play at this pissing contest for days if the two of you want to, or we can have the decency to fill our guests in, Josh.” Hanekoma intercedes, his kindness still so firm.

“I’m interested in the option with the pissing contest.” Joshua shrugs.

“I’m probably better at that option too.” I say. But the color of the lights on one of the shop’s gaudy signs flashes green, and then quickly blue, then violet, then red. Red light travels the fastest, but what good is it if Lea can’t dive into a sleeping world? Sora’s already proved just how deadly it can be. In an effort to displace some of my nervous energy, I remove my hand from Neku’s and begin to twist my engagement ring around my finger.

“So Shibuya got Inverted. In your terms, it fell to darkness. Same thing happened to Shinjuku, which is basically our nextdoor neighbor. Our fates are more tied than we thought.” Sanae explains.

“Which means?” I ask.

“Which means that when Shinjuku fell, it was a whole mess. Their UG spilled into their RG, Noise possessed people and technology, their Composer locked down the world himself, but the higher ups decided that wasn’t enough, and they blacked him out. Shibuya’s supposed to operate independently, but no dice for us. Some Reaper caught wind before Josh and I did, somehow, and she tried to force Neku into some sort of penalty game to prove to the higher ups, once more, that Shibuya was a place worthy of keeping around.” Hanekoma explains.

“But Sora and I couldn’t clear the mission. We failed, so everything got wiped out. The UG, the RG, everyone we know. It’s just us now.” Neku barely gets out before his mouth snaps shut once more, gaze focused on the counter top.

“Out of curiosity then, why are the lot of you still around? Or can your higher ups not take down other gods?” The Master asks. Joshua snickers.

“God isn’t quite right.” Hanekoma responds, a little sheepish, all things considered.

“We were kept here as punishment. A reminder of our failure, trapped in the world’s darkness. Me, my proxy, the partner I hand picked for him. Stripped of power or ability to summon a weapon. Even a Keyblade.” Joshua shakes his head.

“And you?” I ask Sanae, who just shrugs.

“Someone’s gotta run the shop.” As though that explains everything. “You two, I’m curious about though.”

“To be honest, I think a lot of things played a role in me getting here.” I grumble, voice stained with bitterness, as my eyes flick across the counter to where the Master is leisurely eating his soup. Fine, fucker wants to play aloof, I can try at it. Maybe. “But I think it’s mostly got to do with the fact that Sora’s heart is connected with mine. He appeared in Shibuya, my heart recognized the world and I had one of my Nobody friends open up a portal to bring me here. I thought he was playing the Reaper’s Game, I didn’t want him going in without a partner.”

When the Master doesn’t immediately respond to the same question, we each start to turn to him. He looks up from his soup, feigning unassuming beneath his hood, I’m sure.

“Oh, yeah. Um, so ancient Keyblade Master right? Well, darkness and light have been at war since the dawn of time. It looked like darkness was gonna gain the upper hand, so I did some rewriting. Maybe a bit too much, ran through endless simulations, tested out a lot of them. Saved the world, but no one’s immune to the price of the Power of Waking. Anyhow, I made sure I ended up here, with all the rewriting. It's a cell, but not an unbreakable one, right?” The Master says, and I think that explains very little about the power of waking, but as I process it, I realize, it explains more than Yen Sid ever has. I have nothing nice to say about the Master of Masters, but this does say something for him being forthcoming, even in his own fucked up way. The price of the power of waking is eternal slumber. Okay, got it. 

“What did you have to do to save your world?” Sora asks, cocking his head to the side, very obviously confused, and I get it, this is convoluted, even by the standards of our lives. 

“Essentially hand off power to my apprentices and send my Keyblade down the line to future wielders until one came along who could set off a certain chain of events.” The Master says. “Never did get there, but we got close enough so I can finish the rest.”

“The rest of what?” I snap, shoulders tightening defensively. 

“Getting rid of the darkness.” The Master says simply, which I don’t particularly trust, but I remember my own words and my own limitations. Now is hardly the time to pick a fight.

“So who’s got your Keyblade now?” Sora asks.

“My apprentice, Luxu.” The Master says, and there’s that name again, uncurling tension within me and simultaneously, disturbing everything. 

“Before him?” I ask, rolling my eyes at the obvious click bait he spews.

“That pin in your pocket should answer that.” The Master shrugs. “You trying to tell me you’ve never seen that anywhere else?” He asks, and I scrunch my face, visualizing the reptilian eye. Only in my own station of awakening have I encountered it, I want to tell him, but apparently, the lack of practice has my empathy link rusty. I’m pouring things into Sora that I don’t even realize, memories of the eye and he nearly chokes.

“Xehanort’s Keyblade.” Sora breathes, and like he is consciously doing it, his memories pump into my mind, memories of clashing with a blade I have scarcely seen. Fuck. 

“It’s seen many owners, all powerful, all promising, all leagues ahead of their peers.” The Master waves a hand. “I passed that sword down to one of my apprentices, and him to his and so on. Shame that after everything it ended up in incapable hands.”

“Why should any of us believe you weren’t working for him?” Sora snaps, chest getting puffy, shoulders squaring.

“I don’t particularly care if you were.” Joshua replies.

“I do.” Neku counters, firmly, bringing Joshua pause. “Rueki and Sora are my friends, if this matters to them, it matters to me.”

This poor, precious child has grown so fast.

“Fine.” Joshua mumbles.

“You wanna know the truth of it, Sora? You and I really are on the same side. Light should always win, darkness should always lose. The problem is that it doesn’t always get to work like that. The longer things carry on, the stronger the darkness gets. A long time ago I decided it was time to change that, to actively find a way to stop the darkness from infecting everything. It was harder then, because the worlds were all connected, everything leaked into itself. So I divided them and sent the worthy on quests to gather light. As much of it as they could. But as long as darkness persists, no amount of light can get rid of it. And I want all of it gone. Every last bit.” The Master explains. Sora is still rigid, still unsure. “But the true light is still hidden away, safe and sleeping in the deepest darkness. As long as it’s safe, there’s hope.”

My insides feel as though they have dropped out of me. My mouth is dry as parchment. I stand up, without necessarily meaning to and eyes fall on me.

This is the story Naminé told me, the story Kairi’s grandmother told her. An ancient story of a world filled with fairytales, of the creation of the Keyblade, of a world bathed in light. I don’t trust this Master, not on a personal level, but when he is relaying facts from those I do trust, he can’t be wholly wrong.

And perhaps, for the time being, this means he isn’t outright harmful.

“You are what you say, aren’t you?” I ask. The Master chuckles, Sora balks.

“You think so, Rueki?” Sora asks.

“Tragically. Everything adds up.” I nod.

“And there’s that childlike wonder I was hoping for.” The Master applauds. 

“If you tell me you’re some sort of god, I’m going to punch you.” I say, flatly. The Master chuckles.

“Well, you win some, you lose some.” The Master says. “And I’m ready to win some. Not that I’m not loving story time and all, but I have the pleasure of already knowing that I’m getting out of here. Which means that you two are maybe going to help us figure out the logistics of that, hmm?” The Master asks.

“Are you incapable of piecing things together? And here I thought you were on the same level as Mr. H and I. Shibuya functions on two planes simultaneously. Even if by some trick of fate, you could summon your Keyblade, you would need someone on the other side, in the sleeping RG, to unlock the Keyhole as well.” Joshua snaps.

“Don’t suppose you have any control over what this key of yours is doing?” Sanae asks, looking to the Master.

“Be a hell of a trick if I could, huh? No, but everything the blade sees, I do.” The Master says, which makes a lot more sense about him knowing things about the lot of us. If all of Xehanort’s vessels are connected with him and therefore his all seeing Keyblade, of course the Master has this impossible information.

“Shame we can’t get ahold of your friends.” Sanae heaves a shakes his head, mouth pressing into a tight lipped frown as he tends to one of the machines, wiping it down with a rag. 

I don’t need any sort of psychic abilities to feel Sora’s gaze on me.

I scrub a hand through my hair. This is fucking gross, I feel dirty even considering what I know both Sora and I are thinking, and the fact of the matter is, I am beyond rusty. I’m not even sure that this is possible from a sleeping realm--after all, I had to dive into Sora’s sleep to interact with him before-- and the last time I did it, I know that neither Sora nor I felt particularly great. Still, the circumstances are much in the same, it’s life or death and my own morality aside, I know anyone who is capable of helping would be pissed to find out I didn’t even try.

“I’d rather not.” I mumble. “You know…” 

“Yeah.” Sora nods, and I do notice the way his face contorts, as though he isn’t particularly fond of the idea that I know is spilling into his mind. “They’d wanna help though.”

“I’m not totally sure they can. I’m hellishly out of practice, I was cut off from all of them while you were gone and you were gone a year our time.” I explain, which widens Sora’s eyes. “You’re the one I have the empathy link with, not the others. I didn’t even remember Xion and she was living in your heart; I couldn’t feel Ven until you knew he was there too.”

“But Roxas.” Sora says. My mouth goes dry. Somehow, this is even grosser. I love very few people more than I love Roxas. But he’s right, if there’s anyone who has lived inside of his heart that I can reach across realms to, it’s my dearest friend. 

“Yeah.” I agree. And in the depths of my heart, I do feel him, hazy but stable.

“Empathy link…” Hanekoma mutters, eyes narrowing. “Isn’t that some sort of ancient magic from your worldline? Is that even possible?”

“Oh, it’s possible, but you’re right. That’s a spell from my time.” There is an obvious smile in the Master’s voice as he pushes himself up, away from the bar. “He really did line everything up the way he was supposed to. Damn good job, Luxu.” 

No one else in the room reacts. No one says a word and this is when I realize that the Master did not speak. Not aloud. No, this is very much so like feeling Sora’s emotions or having mine spill over into him, but more intense. 

‘My gift to you, Luxu’. 

My throat constricts, but I look directly at the Master, square my shoulders, tilt my jaw up and make the choice to completely brush him aside. As though he is insignificant, as though he is unimportant. Surely that must be the greatest punishment for someone who calls himself the ‘Master of Masters’. I will find a way to block him out, to search him when my resources aren’t so limited, but as for now I accept that everything going on currently is temporary. I just need a bandaid for this situation.

“Yeah it’s possible, and yeah, I can pull someone to unlock the other side. But in the mean time, I don’t suppose there’s anywhere I can get a dry outfit?” I ask as my hair drips onto the ground. Sanae looks to me, head cocked to the side, knowing little smirk on his face.

“No complaining about present company? The state the world’s in? No making excuses?” He teases. I just shrug, trying for a smile myself. There’s plenty to complain about, plenty to be anxious about, but as it stands right now, between Sora and I, we may have to power to fix this. My eyes find Neku, who still looks utterly miserable. I reach over and touch his arm, squeezing gently, yielding a very minimal reaction. It’s funny, the mirror I watch the two of us live in. Lea quite literally pulled me from the clutches of my own misery, with me kicking and screaming, my faith in the world and my friends utterly shattered. If he can do that for me, surely I can do something for this boy who reminds me so much of myself, right? I bite tentatively on my lower lip. 

“Honestly Sanae, I’m just too tired for that shit. I fought a damn war, I don’t wanna have stupid arguments with people I don’t know. I just wanna go home and see my husband.” But as it always seems to go, I’m honest with him and he looks away, blatant disappointment crossing Hanekoma’s face for the smallest fraction of a second. It’s involuntary, I’m sure, but that doesn’t do anything for the shame that coils in my stomach. What the hell am I still doing wrong?

“All the shops are still open, no one’s manning them, so if petty theft doesn’t bug you, you can still dip into any of the stores.” He shrugs.

“My home world was founded by Al-Bhed, petty theft is in my genetic makeup.” Nevermind the fact that I’m not actually Al-Bhed, myself. I do find it to be an absolute misfortune though. Just another moment for me to miss Lea, to miss the highs we chased on being minorly wicked together. I feel stupid, being exhilerated by something like that. By him and very little else.

The way I miss him twists my insides.

“You’re coming with me, kid.” I say, swinging an arm dramatically around Neku’s shoulders, all flourishing and gala. Neku makes an unamused face but shrugs.

“Fine.” He says. Joshua mutters something about a change of outfit for me being about the same as putting lipstick on a pig. I nearly reach out and slap him.

“Have you forgotten the issue at hand of not having access to a Keyblade?” Joshua asks. “You’d need to pull a wild card out of your hat for that one, magic folks.”

My eyes finds Sora’s. We collectively bark out a laugh, loud enough for Neku to flinch away from me and hop off of his seat.

“You still got it?” I ask Sora.

“Yeah.” He nods, retrieving the singular card from the pocket of his pants. I smirk.

“Pretty alright consolation prize for as many times as I’ve lost to Luxord.” I confess as Sora extends the card to Joshua.

“What about this?” Sora asks. Joshua raises an eyebrow, Hanekoma nearly chokes.

“Pray tell, Sora, who gave you a level seven Keypin?” Joshua asks, taking the card into his hand, turning it over.

“Level seven?” Hanekoma actually takes off his sunglasses and sets them on the counter, before leaning over to examine the card Joshua has at hand.

“Is that good?” Sora asks, which I’m thankful for, because I too would like to know.

“Reaper’s don’t get these.” Hanekoma says.

“I don’t even get these.” Joshua pouts, lavishly. 

“Sora, who gave this to you?” Sanae asks. 

“Just some guy.” Sora makes a face. I run my tongue across my teeth, trying to piece together how Luxord, who was part of a group notoriously not allowed in the UG for safety reasons, managed to get his hands on some sort of exclusive Reaper tool. 

“Huh.” Hanekoma presses his lips together, rubbing the scruff on his chin. “Well kiddo, count your blessings.”

“So you can do something with it?” I ask, inclining an eyebrow. Sora’s eyes visibly brighten. Hanekoma grins, taking the card out of Joshua’s hands.

“Give me an hour. I’ll have your Keyblade, kids.”


	4. Chapter 4

III. 

D+B is a tricky store for anyone’s self esteem, but Joshua is the single worst person to shop with. I sling different articles of clothing over my forearm and he offers nothing but cutting commentary.

“I’m sorry, is this supposed to be flattering?” 

“Do you really think that’s going to be a good color for you?”

“I mean, I suppose if you don’t care about the trends.”

“There’s a reason that’s on clearance, but alright.”

My mouth is pressed into the tightest pout, I turn to Sora.

“I miss Lea.” I whine.

“I’m sure that’ll look great on you, Rueki!” Sora nods, patting my arm sympathetically. My eyes flick to Neku’s.

“I miss Shiki.” I say. He literally chokes.

“Me too.” And at that, there’s finally a genuine display of emotion, though deep remorse is hardly what I’d call a positive outcome. I drag my teeth across my lower lip before disappearing into a dressing room. Acting as quickly as I can, I tear through a few different outfits before finally deciding on a pair of high waisted, black shorts--not nearly as tiny as the ones Shiki dressed me in, but hardly modest-- and a long sleeved, black crop top with strategic cut outs below the collar bone, on the shoulders and near the ribs. The sleeves extend into gloves which will be shielding if any Noise ever manifest in this sleeping Shibuya. And if I’m ever able to summon my weapon at that.

Because this is just a test. This isn’t the start of some new bullshit. This is just me, Neku, Sora and some ancient Keyblade wielder trying to go home. 

And me being thankful that the rain has finally died down.

I don’t necessarily need the thigh high, burgundy boots with studs around the ankle, what I do need, is the matching belt and connecting thigh holster that I promptly jam synthesis items into in preparation for potential Noise.

Not new enemies, certainly not new ones. Because I’ve done my time, my due diligence, the war is done and now I get to rest, Lea promised, he promised. 

I even snatch up a shade of lipstick called ‘merlot’ which is just a bit darker and more violet than my usual color. Joshua takes one look as I apply it and snorts.

“I said it, lipstick on a pig.” He shrugs.

“You’re a little cunt.” I tell him, flatly.

“Hello pot, I’m kettle.” He says, breezily.

“Say what you will, kiddo. Luxu’s gonna love this look. He’s a big fan of you in shorts, he’s pretty vocal about it when you’re not around.” The Master nods in approval, as though he is giddily assessing his child’s future spouse. I make a face.

“And now I miss Del.” I announce, because if ever there were a time I might feel a need to bum a bad habit off of someone, it would be now. 

“Well, much as I’m sure everyone is so enthused by the tale of who this Del character is, it’s been plenty of time, I’m sure Mr. H is ready for us.” Joshua rolls his eyes, as though my very existence is grating at the remainder of his nerves.

“Cool, why don’t you lead the way, the rest of us will follow in a month.” I scoff, though I can’t pretend the idea of a Keyblade being ready for use doesn’t hold infinite appeal to me. We’ve only been in the UG a few hours, but with the weird passage of time in death, I’m sure it’s been much longer for mine and Sora’s friends. And I have been yanking at Roxas’ end of the empathy link like it’s my damn job, trying to guide him properly. My heart leaps at the mere prospect of finding Lea as we wake the world, the warmth he will radiate, the nostalgia of finding each other in the place where we finally agreed to love each other. The utter bliss that will come from being reunited. I twist my engagement ring around my finger. 

I wish it was all fairytales and sugar plums.

The fact of the matter is, this is distressing, and I can easily see myself slipping into a panic attack. There are still sleeping worlds, there is a new hooded figure in my life with some sort of pull on my actions, and seems to have been pulling for insurmountable periods of time, there is some strange someone named Luxu, who I probably know but definitely don’t. Things feel so shaky, and in the wake of the rockiest mental health period of my life, I worry that my fragile, healed heart will be crushed entirely. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to stand without Lea more to the point, and that scares me most of all. Never in my life have I felt so utterly at someone’s mercy. Someone I love, someone I trust.

But I know myself. I’m strong, I’m teeth and nails and grit, I’m not someone’s damsel.

Still, it doesn’t change the way I see myself in my own head.

And that is small and weak and self sacrificing in the worst of ways. My own self image has never repulsed me more, but to that note, I’ve never had this much of a fire beneath me. No matter what else, no matter what happens, no matter which way the course of events spins, I need to get home and back to my husband. And then, beyond that, I need to keep him as close to my heart as I can while keeping him as far away from anything that might creep, that might threaten. He must sit high above it all, untouchable, right in my line of sight. 

I am the watcher of the eternal flame, always.

“Mmm, charming.” Joshua couldn’t possibly roll his eyes harder at me. He beckons a hand as he wheels around, spinning on his heel. Sora offers me an apologetic smile but turns around too, chasing after the ashy haired boy. The Master just chuckles, thrusts his hands into the pockets of his coats and takes these leisurely strides, as though he is just along for the ride. I think that bothers me most of all. Why is someone who praises himself as a noble and most ancient Keyblade wielder allowing himself to be led around? 

My suspicion has me anchored, arms crossed to my chest, but beyond me the only person who seems to remain stationary is Neku. Cocking my head to the side, I take a calculated step toward him, reaching out very slowly, as though he is some sort of wounded animal who might react poorly to any sudden contact.

“You okay, kid?” I ask, in the smallest, gentlest voice I can muster. He just shrugs, not looking up from the ground, not removing his hands from his pockets. And I wouldn’t exactly call myself a wordsmith, I’m hardly the most tactful person I know, I could easily stand around idly, dragging this half sentient kid around with me. “You know, I can see into Sora’s memories, like I’m living them myself. I saw what happened, and it wasn’t your fault, okay?” No one can say I’m not trying.

Neku just snorts.

“I’m not dumb, I know it’s not. That Reaper kept changing the map to Shibuya, how were we supposed to figure out which way to go?” Neku nearly bites, and I think damn, this kid is me. Me, denying I had any fault in Amaya’s injuries. Which, I didn’t, but hearing him is the most uncomfortable sort of mirroring. This poor boy has bore too much for too long.

“Well, lucky us, we’re in a position to change it.” I offer him the smallest of smiles, reaching to grab his wrist. He just shakes me away.

“I get what you’re doing, Rueki, but I’m not interested.” He mutters.

“Come on, kid. Let me help.” I plead. He rolls his eyes, head finally popping up, though the most scathing, disillusioned expression crosses his features. 

“Can you somehow guarantee that my friends are going to be okay, even if Sora manages to restore the world? Because even Joshua says he has no idea if they will be!” Neku snaps, hands visibly balled into fists in the pockets of his shorts. 

“Joshua’s a little asshole, and in case you missed it, he’s about as human as you and me.” Which, come to think of it, is probably why his high and mighty ass is so much bitchier than the last time I saw him. Not that my interactions with him were every particularly friendly, but dear Twilight, the kid is a brat. “I watched you and Sora watch his powers get stripped, I’m willing to bet his lucky little omniscience is gone and now he’s left to guess like the rest of us. I know it sounds a lot easier in theory, don’t get it twisted, kid, I do. But don’t let his lack of supernatural ability confirm your fears.”

“Even if they are there, it’s the same thing over and over again, Rueki. I get to live a normal life for a few weeks, I get dragged back into a year long game that Joshua just keeps repeating over and over again because he’s lonely. Then, he gets penalized, so I get to live a normal life for a few weeks, but then the higher ups decide to chase us out of Shibuya, so we get sent off to Traverse Town. Then once everything is supposed to be sorted out, that crazy Reaper forces me into a game, just to shoot me when I win? And after all of that, after everything, I lose Shibuya. What do I go back to? Who do I go back to? And if I do get back, how many more weeks do I get to do this?” He snaps, leaving me with parted lips and blown out eyes. This poor child. I get it, I certainly get it, but this isn’t my time to tell a story and even if it were, I can’t grant him the answer.

What if this is the same shit all over again, what if he gets thrown back into the land of the dead to play another twisted game? What if I get thrust into another war, victim to another hooded man’s repulsive plans? The idea of destiny has always felt farfetched to me, especially under the implications of predestination, but what if even we aren’t exempt from it?

He leaves me standing in the deserted store, wondering how long I’m supposed to keep convincing myself that this is going to be okay, before something rips this false sense of hope out from beneath me.

\--

When I get to Wildkat, Sora is twirling around the Kingdom Key, face bright and lit up.

“Seriously, I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. H!” He gushes, turning as I walk in the door. “Look, Rueki!” He grins, and I think that even with Neku sulking in the corner, even with the Master who makes me downright uncomfortable, I do belong here. If for no other reason than to bring this boy home.

“Sick, let’s scoot out. We’ve got people missing us.” I remind him. Sora nods.

“Right.” He agrees.

“Plus, I’m pretty sick of this whole dying thing.” I say.

“You’re not technically dead.” Joshua corrects me.

“Mmm, cool, cuz I asked.” I roll my eyes. I swear to fuck, I’m restaring my pettiness journal and writing exclusively about this kid. Sanae’s eyes find me, a little guarded, a little worn, but then flick to Sora, with far more humor. I blanch just a little. It’s something I said, I’m sure of this, but th question is what? And why do Neku and I usually end up being the ones to take the heat of his dismay? Is there something so utterly broken about me that I--

I don’t want to know the answer to that.

“The Keyhole is in someplace called the Shibuya River.” The Master catches me up.

“I know the way.” Neku says.

“As do I, dearest.” Joshua replies, ruffling Neku’s hair. The ginger boy swats him away, wrinkling his face.

“You’re coming too?” Neku asks.

“Of course, I have business I want attended to in the RG. If they can get it back.” Joshua shrugs.

“We can!” Sora insists.

“The kid’s good for his word.” The Master nods. Big fan of Sora’s work indeed.

“Well, Neku, by all means, do lead the way.” Joshua dips low into a bow. Neku’s mouth twists into a crooked line and with the obvious roll of his eyes, he makes his way out the door. Joshua follows easily and Sora behind him. The Master lingers a moment, regards me with a cocked head, then follows.

I however, am more curious about the man behind the counter.

Sanae takes another look at me, takes a swig of his coffee and looks away. My mouth presses into a frown.

“What’s the deal?” I ask. He makes a noncommittal ‘hmm’ing sound, as though he didn’t realize I was still here, as though he wasn’t just looking at me, but then takes another drink. “What’s wrong with me? There’s something that you’re clearly not overly fond of.” And I’m not particularly sure why it bothers me, there’s something about this man that is quite fatherly, that’s certain, but I’m hardly the person to yearn desperately for patriarchal approval. I’m sure there’s more to it, but I can’t put my finger on why it bothers me that he’s just out of my grasp. Am I so hungry for harmony anymore?

Or do I just want confirmation that I’m not completely broken.

Sanae, rather than acting shocked or even trying to glaze over my question, sighs as he leans across the bar, elbows propped.

“So tact is just something we’re not working on?” He asks, voice soft and level, despite everything. I offer a little half smile and tuck my hair behind my ear.

“That was tact.” I confess. “I’m trying.” Like really, genuinely trying. For maybe the first time in my life. Maybe there’s been so much impossible conflict, and conflict that was out of my control at that, that I can’t take anymore. I’m possibly harder shell than I’ve ever been before, but my underbelly is as soft as ever.

“At tact or in general.” He chuckles. I make a face. “You know, ruins the story if I tell you the ending. Doesn’t count as development if I have to do it for you.”

“What about a hint?” I ask, mouth twisting. “Come on, for Lea’s sake. He deserves better than me.”

“Lea?” Sanae raises an eyebrow, and at this, I get to smile hugely.

“Axel. We got our hearts back. We’re married. It’s good.” I confess, biting at the edges of my lips to keep a massive grin at bay, to no avail. 

“Good for you kids!” He laughs with more heart, grinning genuinely now. “But you know, that’s exactly why you can’t take the easy way out, Blondie. You don’t just get to get up one day and skip all of the good parts.”

“I’m sick of the good parts. I’m only here because my best friend died and her boyfriend wanted to bring her back. I just want to rest.” I explain.

“Rest is for the dead. Even without a heart, you didn’t get off scot-free. You know that. You’re still here on an inconvenience, you’re still waiting for a moment. You want a hint, your hint is that this is your moment.” He says, with a little more urgency than before, but entirely, it glides off of me. I snort, as dissociated as ever.

“If this is my moment, then I should probably just stay dead.” It’s a pretty shit moment. Sanae’s face hardens up immediately. He takes a long drink of his coffee and then sets the mug down in the sink. 

“You better go find your friends, Blondie. You let them get too far ahead and you really will be stuck here with me.” Walls go up as he speaks, but not in a defensive way. Still there is no question in my mind, the finality of his word. He has nothing left to offer me. What a lost cause I am indeed. All because I want something that feels good. I drag my teeth over my lower lip and turn, not offering another word as I follow the others to the Shibuya river.

The leisure he must feel is certainly due to his immortality, I remind myself, it’s not on a level I need hold myself to. He’s not been in my shoes, he’s not been on my journey, in fact, he hasn’t lived in a conscious world in Twilight knows how long. I do feel like a petulant child and yet, I know what I have lived through. I alone know how far I’ve come, the way I’ve clawed, and I’m proud of my journey. I’m allowed to be, the last few years of my life have been no easy feat, and no one, least of all a man I have met for mere moments, is allowed to downplay what I’ve become. I’m mortal and by nature, I am flawed. The cards I’ve been dealt have been played extraordinarily.

Pride, by nature is not a sin.

It’s only excess that is a vice.

Being quick on my feet gets me to the Shibuya River mere footsteps behind my party, my hummingbird heartbeat distracting me from my own internal criticism.

“Kind of you to join us.” Joshua mutters, looking at his cuticles as my footsteps approach.

“Everything okay, Rueki?” Sora asks. I shrug.

“Yeah.” I wave a hand. This time, for the first time, I feel a gentle prodding at the back of my mind, which my consciousness instantly slaps away. There’s absolutely no finesse in Sora’s technique. The boy doesn’t even know how to sneak into picking my brain. “Just wanted to check with him, make sure there wasn’t a chance of us running into Reapers before we could wake the world.” I lie.

“An egg could’ve answered that question, if you bothered to pay attention.” Joshua scowls, which only heightens my utter rage. Fucking asshole. Between his piss poor attitude and Sora’s poking without my consent, I swear my blood could boil. I’m not exactly the most hands off person myself, but I know I’ve never dug around his mind intentionally, without permission. Had thoughts flood into my head, certainly, but I’ve shut my doors for a reason. 

“Are you gonna be less of a bitch when you get your sparkle powers back, dick head, or should we just throw down now while the playing field is level?” I ask.

“Okay, sugar, let’s take a breather.” The Master tugs gently at my shoulder, pulling me just enough away from Joshua, Sora and Neku so that I’m not in the way. So that I’m standing at his side rather than with my friends. I hate the way this feels, this rock and a hard place. Between every single one of these pressure points, I don’t know where to twist for relief. Certainly not into Neku, who might break under the pressure of my inability to make promises. Not into Sora, who wants to dig into insecurities that I have very pointedly blocked him from. Not into either of the inhuman creatures who both seem to have very strong opinions on me.

I brush my fingertips across my palms, trying to displace everything all into myself. It works about as well as can be expected.

“So, we ready?” I ask, in a clipped tone.

“Uh, yeah.” Sora nods. And onto the easy part. He raises his Keyblade and the entire river lights up. A shining Keyhole appears across from my him. With set shoulders and bated breath, I search for something, anything in my own head that feels foreign.

He can press thoughts into me, so be it.

‘Whatever you have planned is your prerogative. I got you this far, now you leave my friends and I alone. That’s equivalence.’

I don’t know if the Master can hear me, and more to the point, I don’t know how he found his way into my head or heart in the first place when I’m certain I don’t know him--or anyone named Luxu for that matter-- but I’m beyond the point of wondering about occurrences that are wildly out of my control. If he’s what he says he is and merely a seeker of light, in need of me to return him home, fine, he’s got that and my hands can be clean. I can go home to Lea, to Kairi finally, and words cannot express how much I need that. I belong there, safe and steady and stationary, surrounded by those I love.

Behind me, the Master chuckles softly, clearing his throat.

“Now that’s an easy request, sugar. Promise I won’t come calling.” He whispers, just loud enough for me to hear over the bright chiming of Sora, unlocking the Keyhole. Something clicks loudly into place, not unlike the gears of a clock shifting. Two pieces line up and a blinding, white light flashes. My heart leaps into my throat as something very warm overwhelms me, swirling so cozy around my body. 

And then, the light dissipates and two pairs of blue eyes and one of green stare back at us. I feel as though I’m being jolted in the loveliest of ways as I spring across the pavement, launching myself into Roxas’ arms.

“You came!” I sigh, squeezing him tightly, he meets me with rivaling enthusiasm. 

“You called.” He says simply, sweetly, against my hair. I feel two other sets of arms ensnare me as soon as they can possibly manage

“We were so worried Rueki, but you did such a good job, Roxas heard you last week and we came as soon as we could.” Xion cheers, patting my back. Hearing her say ‘last week’ feels odd, but I suppose it really isn’t so much. I know that time passes strangely in death and sleep from my own ventures, and I was at the edge of both. A few hours for me must have felt an impossible amount of time for them.

“Rueki, did you know I unlocked the Keyhole? Xion and Roxas have been training me, but I did this one on my own! I wish you could’ve seen it!” Del laughs high and enthusiastic in a way that tastes nearly contagious. Despite my not wanting him to even consider lifting a blade at all, I am happy for him. This is exactly what he wants, the adventure he craves and at the end of the day he is my oldest friend, I do like seeing him exhilarated like this. 

“I’m sure you did!” I squeeze them all in tandem before I let go, taking a step back, smiling stupidly at each of them. I’ve become a child and I don’t particularly mind. If this is how easy my troubles wash away, I don’t mind feeling so weak or foolish. I am human and so entitled to these things. But there is something that ails me. “Where’s Lea? Where’s Kairi?”

“And Riku?” Sora asks behind me, coming forward, and I’m thankful I’m not the only one with a one track mind. 

“They… um… missed.” Xion makes a face.

“Missed?” Sora asks, blinking rapidly.

“This world is different, you know, it’s got two sides.” Roxas says, smiling knowingly, very aware that I know what he’s told us. “Axel knew you were in Shibuya because of Naminé, but when they dove into this world and didn’t find you, they didn’t look on the other side, they went to the neighboring one to look around.”

“Shinjuku.” Joshua says from behind me, still standing with delicately crossed arms. 

“Your bionic powers back?” I ask, dryly and Joshua snorts much in a similar tone.

“That’s an entirely different journey, but it’s delightful that in light of change, the simplicity of your mind’s capabilities hasn’t altered.” The ashy haired boy waves a hand.

“Kay, cool, if you’re still human, I can still fight you.” I snark back.

“Well, it looks like shes okay.” Del chuckles, rubbing the back of his head. 

“We’ll go get Axel, Riku and Kairi for you guys.” Xion smiles sweetly, waving her hand. And with that, she, Del and Roxas disappear into the portal. I don’t want to ask when Del suddenly got comfortable traversing through darkness, but I’m sure the sudden appearance of a Keyblade does make him a little more resilient. Well, certainly I’m going to have to remind the teenagers that they need to set a better example for a grown adult. Twilight knows Del won’t consider the dangers on his own. I whirl around, turning excitedly to Neku, who I am about to encourage to go out and search for his friends with me. But to my surprise, there’s a body missing.

“Where’d the Master go?” Sora asks, touching the back of my arm. Where indeed, I wonder, dragging my teeth across my lower lip. And while I don’t trust the absent silhouette by any standard of the word, he did get what he wanted. Probably. It’s not like we could’ve reawakened the world and left him behind, so he must have traveled with us and disappeared before any of us could notice. Still, we are home and while I may not fully understand how he was able to align the stars to trick a timer onto my hand, I do know that for this, my connection was necessary. He promised equivalence. All I hope is that it counts for something.

“More importantly, where did my friends go?” Neku asks, voice very timid, barely above a whisper. But in the set of his shoulders, I see something more. He is frightened, surely, of an answer that might be miserable, but he is unwavering.

“My guess is that they’re back with the rest of Shibuya.” Joshua says. “Though I’m not able to detect them in any way. I’m sure the higher ups must be holding my usual powers hostage still, tragically. Well never the less, looks like we’ve still got more to do, Neku dearest.” And Joshua extends a long fingered hand, but Neku doesn’t even meet his gaze.

“Not this time.” Neku shakes his head.

“Beg pardon?” Joshua lifts an eyebrow. 

“I’m not your proxy, not anymore.” Neku insists, finally looking up from the ground with broken eyes and a set jaw. Sora makes a move to cut in but I grab him by his shoulder and yank him back. He takes a mortified look at me but I shake my head. Whatever Neku is getting at, whatever he’s going through is so beyond not our business. More to the point, this is his right. Is it really so wrong for him to be so hurt and to want to put his foot down?

“I don’t think you understand what you’re saying, Neku. The journey isn’t over.” Joshua insists but Neku scoffs, taking a step away. 

“For me, it is.” Is all Neku says, before he turns off on his heel, not offering me or Sora a second glance. And Joshua, for his title, for his smarmy demeanor just watches the boy walk away. The longer I remain stationary, the more like a voyeur I feel. So I turn too, chasing after Neku, as fast as my legs will take me.

By time I catch up to him, he’s sitting at the statue of Hachiko, leaning forward, head in his hands. Too many, too loud people brush past me, and in this properly restored reality, I have to weave in and out of throngs to get to him.

Funny, how even surrounded like this, he seems so very alone. 

He doesn’t look up as I approach, but I take a seat beside him, curling my legs toward my chest.

“Your phone is ringing.” I tell him, because it’s chiming loudly, I’ve no idea how he can ignore it, because it’s driving me bonkers. And it’s Shiki calling.

“I don’t care.” Neku mutters. “I’m fucking sick of caring, I’m tired, Rueki.”

I wrap my arms around him, pressing my cheek into his hair and Neku crumbles, for the first time, he falls into me, falls apart, so exposed and so ignored as we cling to each other. 

I hate the way that our lives run parallel.

“I can’t figure out anymore how to let things go. I just want to shut everything off and rest.” He breathes. So I hold him tighter and squeeze his arms.

“You’re too young to be putting up with this.” I agree. “You know how bad I want to take you from this?” Or any of the children forced to grow up and dive into violence so young, for that matter. 

“Do you ever think we’re cursed?” He grumbles, as though he is annoyed with himself for voicing the thought. I snort.

“I wish I could tell you I didn’t believe in curses anymore.” I try. 

“Why does this need to be so… fucked up?” He asks me. “Why can’t things just be normal? Normal people don’t get called on by higher powers to constantly play fix it. Normal people don’t get stabbed in the back by higher powers.”

The fact that he’s pouring himself out to me like this has me so humbled, because I know Neku well enough to know that he opens up like I do, by force and at the edge exclusively. 

“Dude, I know.” And I don’t tell him that normal people don’t have time traveling men who lure them into sleeping worlds, normal people don’t have to count their breaths to keep calm and not fear another brewing war. Normal people don’t wake screaming. 

“Every day I just want to leave and not come back.” He mutters. 

“I tried, it doesn’t work well. Not with people like Shiki or Axel in our lives.” I assure him, patting his head.

“Shiki has other people. And she deserves a better life than this.” Neku says. “Better than worrying about me and having the world end because I couldn’t save it.”

“Same with Lea.” I say. Neku stirs in my arms so once more, I correct myself. “Axel. He’s wonderful, he has a life and friends now. He doesn’t hate himself so much anymore. He has so much outside of me, but he won’t let me disappear. I can’t give you advice kid, I’m still pretty fucked. But I really don’t think life is meant to be lived alone anymore. I don’t think we’re meant to survive on our own, I don’t think any of us can.” 

Neku’s fingernails bite into my back.

“And you’re not alone. You’ve got me. You always have me, Neku.” I assure him, and with that, I nab his phone off his lap and enter my number in. He pulls away, wiping his reddened face, visibly ashamed, but I grab his hand as I place his phone back into it. “I don’t wanna make this weird, but I do love you, kid. I know life is actual shit but--”

And I don’t know ‘but’ what. Neku buries his face in my neck once more, and I disappear into his shoulder and think of how thankful I am that Axel fucked up and sent me spiraling into the UG. Because I love this child more than I could love my own, more than I love a lot of people, and despite the broken and brief moments we’ve spent together, I cannot imagine my heart without him.

Maybe when all of this is done we can have a moment where we get to just be human beings together. But a wicked insecurity strikes me. What if this is never going to be over? What if surrounding myself with Keyblade Masters means there will always be a war to fight? What if this connection to the Master of Masters isn’t done and is supposed to have to me tied to the impossible breakdown of my heart and my life? What if my dangerous hope is something that will never come to fruition?

I could get sick.

I really am in no position to give advice, because as it stands, I’m still in no position to hope. I cannot disconnect it from idiocy in my mind.

Neku’s phone rings again. It’s Shiki, but he can’t even handle looking at it, so I answer.

“Shiki, it’s Rueki.” I announce.

“Omigod, Rueki, I knew you were involved, I’m with Eri right now and like we both remember the world turning dark, but then we just woke up in line at D+B like we were before? But we totally know something weird happened, and when I couldn’t get ahold of Neku, I just felt sick, like what else was I supposed to expect? Are you okay? You’re not in a shop in the UG or something are you? Is Axel with you?”

Fuck me.

“It’s for you.” I tell Neku. He glares at me so I heave a sigh.

“Yeah, so shit hit the fan, but it’s cool. Axel’s not with us, but Sora is, we saved the world, so no sweat. Neku’ll meet you at 104 though, so don’t worry.” I say, a desperate attempt to placate someone with a fist full of worries, who talks a mile a minute.

“Sora? Omigod, that’s good, he’s strong, no wonder you guys were able to take care of everything. Eri and I are almost done here, she’s gotta go to her mom’s after this, but you, me, Sora and Neku HAVE to go shopping together, Rueki, last time I saw you, you were wearing unicorn pajama pants and someone else’s shirt, you can’t walk around like that in Shibuya, plus I’ve got the feeling you need to get your mind off of crazy UG stuff if you’re with Neku.” Shiki is quite quick to recover and I snort.

“You know, normally I’d take you up on that, but I do have to meet up with Axel. He and I will stop back though, we’ll all hang out together, the four of us.” offer.

“Totally! It’ll be like old times, but without fighting Noise.” Shiki giggles. “Tell Neku I’ll see him soon.”

“Sure, will do.” I say. And with that Shiki hangs up and I press the end button on Neku’s phone. He offers me a half miserable smile and reaches for my hand. I squeeze him back, delving into this sweet, innocent, intimacy. “She’s gonna grill you hard, man.”

“Yeah, well, the Shiki’s of the world are my problem. The Axel’s are yours.” He says. I snort.

“What makes you think he’s not gonna reem me?” I ask.

“He might, he probably should.” Neku says, I don’t disagree. “But, I see that ring on your finger.” He nods toward my hand. I smirk.

“No harping on me for not being invited to the wedding?” I ask.

“No, I was dead.” He nods. “But you might wanna get out of here before Shiki sees it.” He offers. I smirk.

“You really are my favorite of all the teenagers. For real, kid.” I say. He waves a hand at me.

“See you soon, for real this time.” And with that, he takes off and Sora finds his way onto the scene, huffing.

“Rueki!” He waves a hand quickly, and I think that I’m hardly equipped to face anyone, especially him, after delving too much into Neku’s insecurities.

And mine as well.

My phone chimes, alerting me that Neku has started following me on Kingstagram. This sort of optimism feels almost horrifying to me, and yet, I absolutely devour it. I’m waffling too much, but I think it’s because this time I genuinely want things to be okay. This time, I’m not rushing headlong into hellfire.

I’m an absolutely disgusting creature. I should be smart enough to stop believing in happy endings, no matter how delightful they taste.

In the hustle and bustle of the recently reawakened world, I don’t even hear the gentle pitter patter of Sora’s footsteps as he gets close and instead, I just have to meet him with a stupid, satisfied look on my face. He grins hugely too, and plops down beside me.

“This mean we can go home now?” I ask and he laughs, the sound ringing like a bell, even above the crowds.

“Man, I sure hope so.” Sora sighs, resting his hands on the back of his head as he leans into the statue. “That was a really weird journey though. And who was the Master of Masters?”

“Dude, I’m pretty over trying to figure out who guys in black coats are. I just hope all he wanted was to go back home.” I roll my eyes, but this causes Sora to stiffen, just a little. “Kid…” I begin, anxiously, worried this will end in a mess. I can see a fight in his eyes, but the last thing I want to look for right now is trouble. Not when everything is supposed to be settling in, not with the prospect of living the life I earned from years of war and grief and torture, so tangible. Why can it not be my time to seize a reward, when I know that I am finally deserving?  
“Do you think he’s a danger, Rueki? I know he said he’s on the side of light, but… But Xehanort thought he was doing the right thing too.” Sora frowns, so I sling an arm around him, hugging him loosely.

“Well that’s the thing, right? No one actually gets up in the morning and thinks they’re doing evil deeds.” I remind him, and to this, he snorts ever so softly.

“I guess. It was just a lot easier when all we had to fight was monsters of darkness.” He confesses. And as though the mere incantation of the word is some sort of summoning mechanism, very visible in front of Sora and I, appears the strangest, black Noise insignia, nothing like I’ve ever seen before. And to my surprise, the inhabitants of the world completely brush past it, as though in their own disarray, it’s so easy for them to miss this obvious blemish. But I blanche, and Sora does too.

“So, you see it then?” I ask. He nods.

“What should we do?” He asks, and my immediate answer is to leave it the fuck alone and teleport as far away from this thing as I possibly can. Who knows what price there is to pay for curiosity, especially in a world swung off balance. But Sora’s question is apparently hypothetical, because he stands up, reaches out and touches the insignia, which promptly drags us into an absolute clusterfuck.

I stand alone in the same realm of combat I recall from my previous journey to Shibuya. This time, I wear no pins and La Luxure already dangles from between my fingers. There is a part of me, a microscopic part of me that feels bliss or relief or some sort of combination of the two upon the weight of the weapon in my hands. That glitch, that mere blip feels at home thoroughly. But the part of me that is cognitive, that is more than my base instinct watches with a tightened throat as a group of Shadows appear.

No, not Shadows. These things are far more humanoid, wearing striped clothing, thorny gloves and pointed hats. Upon their backs, dark, spiked wings, not utterly unlike the wings of a Reaper, protrude. This, I think, is unlike any Heartless I’ve ever seen. But Heartless are targets I’m familiar with. And there’s one thing I know I’m still good at.

“Thundaza!” I raise the blades of La Luxure into the air and from it, a beast of a spell rains down, scorching the field with its storm. One of the dark things leaps at me and in the moment before the spell strikes, its talons bite down into my flesh. I cry out, tearing my leg away, the skin of my mid thigh in tendrils. 

“Give me lux!” It demands in a nails on a chalkboard voice that sends me staggering.

“Thunder!” I choke, and the basic spell depletes what remains of the creature. Heartless don’t speak.

Just like that, Sora and I are drawn back to Hachiko, as though we never disappeared in the first place, as though the glyph was just a trick of the mind. But Sora is standing and from where I sit and my thigh is shredded.

“Fuck.” Is my reflex. Sora turns around, eyes huge.

“Rueki, what was that?” He sputters, staggering over to me, as though I’m somehow supposed to know the answer. Instead of offering one, I snatch a Potion from my holster and down it quickly. The wound dries up but doesn’t close. Instead, I’m left with gashes in my legs that still need to be dressed, which is odd for a Potion. The only time one hasn’t mended me completely was when Saix--

Fuck.

Panic shoots through me, hammering in my temples, snatching at my heart. So I clutch Sora, trying hard to hold on, to keep my fear from spilling into him. Still, some slips through the cracks.

“Hey, come on, it’s okay. Roxas and Xion and Del are probably waiting for us over at the River.” Sora urges, helping me to my feet. “Do you think you can walk?”

“Yeah, but hold on and try not to get sick, this’ll be faster.” I sigh, pinching my eyes shut as I visualize the Shibuya River. With Sora tethered to me, we teleport, jerking and jolting in the absolute most unnatural way, as though through space and time, until we touch ground. Immediately, I sink to the pavement, spent and nauseous. Sora gags, planting his hands against a wall, fighting to keep the contents of his stomach down. 

“That was the worst thing ever.” Sora chokes.

“Yeah, why do you think I never do it?” I grumble.

“Whimp.” Roxas teases, smiling cheekily as he cocks his head to the side. I look up, grinning queasily back at him and the others that are waiting for us. Roxas and Xion are holding hands, at the edge of the river, standing beside Del--who is talking a mile a minute--and Lea, who appears to be nursing some kind of dried up injury on his arm. An injury disturbingly similar to mine. 

Kairi, on the other hand, is leaning gently against Riku, the two blatantly thrilled to be reunited, despite the fact that Kairi’s nose might have been broken and Riku is at the very least a lot scuffed up.

“Sora! Rueki!” Kairi suddenly yelps, flying over to us. She leaps at me, locking her arms around my neck, nearly tackling me over the very second I try to stand. Were it not for Sora, sandwiching the two of us with quickly recovered energy, I very well would have hit the ground again. “I swear to Twilight, do you two ever think before you act? Like seriously, Rueki, I just about scalped Naminé for just sending you off into a portal! You can’t just do whatever you want, we’re your friends, you’re supposed to consult us before you go fishing in the realm of the dead!” Kairi snaps, trying very hard to sound pissed, though she is obviously elated. Whether she is genuinely this pleased to be reunited or her heart is expelling anger faster than she can muster it, I don’t know. I don’t particularly care. She smells like sunshine and strawberries and all I want to do is press her close enough that her wounds and ailments heal and the past year can be wholly erased.

“Oh fuck off, you literally sacrificed yourself without consulting anyone, and you were dead for a year. I’ve only been gone a couple weeks!” I remind her.

“I know and I’m sorry, but two wrongs don’t make a right! And I didn’t consult anyone because we were literally in the middle of a battle, Rueki!” Fucking excuses.

“Yeah, I had a timer on my hand, I had to go fix what you messed up.” I tease her, though I pat her hair, relieved at how much like home she still feels.

“Stop being such a bitch or I’ll punch you.” She orders.

“Sure, bossy pants.” I snort.

“And you!” She pulls away from the two of us, hands on her hips as she looks at Sora. “What you did was very brave, but you dying for me isn’t okay! Sora, I chose to save you, you can’t just overwrite my actions, that was a choice I made!”

“A dumb choice.” I mutter, so Kairi actually does punch me. “Ah, dick!” She definitely hits harder than I remember but maybe that’s cuz I’m soft as hell anymore. 

“Kairi, what was my happy ending supposed to be without you?” Sora asks, eyes wide like a puppy dog, head tilted to the side, Kairi literally melts. She sweeps him in an impossible hug that seems to warm Sora in ways that are too much for him to handle. The sticky sweet affection spills over into me, and I’m sure Roxas and Xion as well. Between these two we could get a toothache, but I still have my reunion as well. I turn to Lea, smirking ever so sheepishly. I bite my lip and play at coy as I walk over, hands linked behind my back.

“So I’m alive.” I offer. He chuckles, shaking his head at me.

“If you didn’t just jump into the land of the dead, I’d kill you right here and now sweetheart.” He sweeps in and scoops me up, grabbing me by the tops of my legs. His mouth is searing against mine, thank Twilight. Only in combustion do I feel so much like myself. My nails scrape his back as I pull him in tighter, not wanting to move or breathe or even think without him clutching me desperately. When we do part, he doesn’t release me and I do not pull my forehead from his. “I like the outfit.” He breathes, me still in his arms.

“But you’d rather see it on the floor?” I inquire in a voice low enough for only him to hear.

“You read my mind Rueks, but to be honest, I’m just happy as hell to hold you again.” And I do agree with him. Much as I can’t wait to devour him, to pour every ounce of how much I missed and love him into an incredibly carnal act, this simplicity, the innocence is just as satisfying. 

“So all’s good if we just like… take a nap together first?” I giggle as he sets me back down. 

“Very good, I’d take ten naps a day if my wife wasn’t always hounding me.” He winks.

“You’re stupid.” But I lean into him anyway, pressing my cheek to his chest. “You okay over there, Riku?” I call out and though I can’t see the silver haired boy, I do hear him laugh.

“As long as this isn’t me hallucinating.” Riku replies.

“It’s a good one though, right?” I tease back.

“Um, by the way, you two.” I hear Kairi’s voice and look away from Lea to see her pointing at us, arm around Sora’s as they make their way over to Riku. “What’s this whole ordeal with eloping?”

“You shouldn’t have stayed dead, so long.” I shrug. She snorts.

“You’re such a jerk.” She shakes her head.

“And you’re a brat. You owe Lea free ice cream for life for all the work he had to do on my mental health.” I wave a hand at her. She laughs, loudly.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to second that one, princess, got it memorized?” Lea winks at her. Kairi proceeds to flash him her middle finger and I think I could not possibly love these two any more than I already do. Lea’s hands begin to roam down my sides, my arms, even my legs and as he brushes my thigh, he immediately seizes up. “You too, Rueks?” He asks. I wrinkle my nose, knowing instantly what he is referring to.

“They spoke Lea. They wanted something called lux.” I mutter. 

“I was hoping it was kind of exclusive to Shinjuku. By the way, sweetheart, you will not guess who we met!” He grins, eyes sparking as I look at him. 

“You talking about Xigbar?” Riku groans, crossing his arms to his chest.

“Xigbar’s back?” Sora yelps.

“We chased him around the damn town, along with their new Composer, Yozora.” Lea explains, and I make a face, trying to figure out what he is conveying, but there is an obvious anxiety that writes itself across my features. And Lea, he’s observant as all hell. He processes instantly what I have hardly allowed myself to feel. Xigbar is back. Xigbar is taunting my spouse and my best friend. Xigbar, who promised me that this wasn’t done. I need so badly for him to be wrong that it clenches my insides, sending my heart into hyperdrive. “Hey, what’s wrong, baby?” He asks, brushing my hair behind my ear, but I flinch offering only the most pathetic smile.

“Nothing, who’s Yozora? And what’s Xigbar want?” And I hope against all hope that Lea will take this and run with talking, but the man I love is nothing if not over attentive. 

“You said his name funny.” He makes a face. I don’t need to ask who he’s referring to. “Rueki, why are you feeling some sort of way about Xigbar being back?”

Because he’s never been dead, because he seems to think whatever strange and deadly future he has a role in, I should too. Because a strange, ancient being in a black cloak who, mysteriously disappears seems to think I was necessary in his revival. Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.

“I--” Words fail me, all I have are empty noises, I can’t control myself. Roxas eyes go huge, Xion gasps loudly.

“He’s been alive the whole time.” Xion whispers and I think I could cry. Instead, I curl my hands into impossibly tight fists, thankful for the fabric of my clothing to cushion my palms against the splitting pressure of my fingernails. 

“And you knew.” Lea looks to me, equal parts shock, dismay and disgust. 

“But he was on your list?” Kairi cocks her head to the side, nose wrinkled in confusion.

“Rueki why the hell would you not tell me that you knew Xigbar was alive?” Lea asks, in a voice that simmers. His face is otherwise calm, nearly placid, as though he is trying incredibly hard to keep his mask in tact. But his control slips as his eyes boil. “Rueki, why?” He can’t tell what to make of me and this time, I’m the one on the defensive end.

I can’t play defense for shit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not gonna lie, a lot of times when I go see a movie, my first thoughts are 'how can I draw inspiration for Rueki from this '. Writing this long of a series and staying inspired takes dedication. Seeing Captain Marvel was super inspirational for me, seeing Frozen II, was game changing in this story and the reason there's gonna be a lot more Disney in this story than the previous two.   
I'm a big Star Wars fan and I tolerate a lot. I'll stan Phantom Menace, I'll stan the whole prequel trilogy because at its core is heart. Maybe not the best executed dialogue, but a series I can't find any beauty in. I've been so into this new trilogy and how amazing it can be and I just feel so slapped in the face. Rueki's arc has always been so inspired by a character in this new trilogy the way I've seen Terra compared to Anakin, and seeing the way this conclusion played out has honestly be so disappointing. I walked in looking only to be encouraged as this is the end of Rueki's story. I was met going "my story absolutely cannot end so unsatisfactory". Hopefully this absolute disaster keeps me on track and motivated because honestly maybe I had too high of hopes but I just wanted a satisfying ending and I know this is only the beginning of this story but I so hope I can give you guys better.

IV.

What follows is the single most uncomfortable Gummi flight I have ever endured, bar none.

My hands shake with tremors that don’t even cease once we lift off, but despite my weakness, I need something distracting and consuming to pull me away from the fact that Lea is at the furthest back corner of the ship possible, pretending as hard as he can that I don’t exist. And I’ve got nothing for him. No apology, no explanation, though Roxas offers plenty of those. He sits right beside me in the front, arms crossed sulkily to his chest. Lea is pissed, beyond pissed, he is absolutely on fire, and Roxas snapping back at him that I was busy grieving Kairi’s loss when I discovered that Xigbar hadn’t been taken down, has done nothing to help the situation. I had an entire year to speak up, it’s not like the Freeshooter had never crossed my mind and yet--

No, there’s no yet. This is me, this is my bad and my poor pride is so sick of my subconscious smashing it with a hammer. I’m being torn every which way, wanting to come to my own defenses, rather than forcing a seventeen year old to do it, but truly I am paralyzed, something new grips me, a fear with claws. 

This was a dire mistake. After learning that Kairi, Riku and Lea got stuck in Shinjuku, playing a game created by the new Composer, Yozora--as in Yozora from that video game Lea and I spent far too much time playing-- and then were immediately intercepted by Xigbar, who sprung the very same humanoid Heartless on my friends that appeared to Sora and I, I don’t think there can be any further twisting. The fault is mine, if I hadn’t dove in so recklessly for Sora, desperate to protect my friend from being stuck in the Reaper’s Game, if I had at least warned someone that Xigbar might be around to cause trouble, three members of my inner circle might not have gotten dinged up as hard. Poor Kairi wouldn’t have broken her nose, Lea wouldn’t wear an incurable wound to match mine, Riku wouldn’t be nursing a potential concussion. I spent a year beyond weak, past my very rock bottom. I carved a hole for myself inside of my own grief, and now, the way I carelessly wept is costing my friends. Lea’s got every right to be mad at me, but rather than trying for logic or defense, I have entirely frozen up. Instead, my own internal monologue is a series of contemplations of how I can beg him to forgive me and not to leave me. Not when Kairi and Sora are home, not when things are supposed to be good finally, not when we can be safe if we keep our heads down and play our cards right. 

Fuck, I can’t lose him.

“I don’t understand how you can say you care about her healing and then turn right around and get mad at her for things she did when she was sick!” Roxas unlocks his seatbelt and wheels around, eyes wild as he turns to Lea. Fuck, not more of this.

“Put your seatbelt back on and turn around.” I order Roxas, in a voice that feels meek for me.

“This isn’t between you and me Roxas, her and I can discuss it later.” Lea snaps back, slamming his fist into the bench seat he shares with Del and Xion. Xion yelps just a little, chewing her lip.

“Hey, we’re together again, isn’t that what’s important?” Xion pipes up, sounding terribly like Sora.

“She’s right, we’ve got the team back, we can take down an old adversary.” Sora agrees.

“Oh and don’t worry, I’ll make sure your boyfriend stays dead this time, sweetheart.” Lea seethes, which has me flinching and sits even worse with Kairi, who, like Roxas unbuckles and turns around.

“Kai, I swear to Twilight, I will crash this ship, don’t test me.” I whine, but she’s hardly concerned.

“Fuck you, Axel!” She snaps. “Whatever happened to not judging someone for something they did when they were at their worst?” 

“This is not your business!” Lea hisses, to which, Kairi scoffs.

“If you weren’t sitting in back sulking, it wouldn’t need to be our business. We’re literally in a damn ship, man the fuck up, can’t you tell she’s punishing herself enough?” Kairi throws her hands up and I wonder if there is enough liquid anywhere in this ship that I could possibly drown myself.

“Kairi, sit down!” Riku orders, grabbing her arms, but she literally kicks him in response.

“You sit down!” She counters.

“I am sitting.” Riku groans.

“Rueki’s freaked the hell out too, Axel, it’s not just you! She’s scared she’s gonna lose you now!” Roxas complains and I think yep, there’s gotta be something here I can drown myself in. Or maybe a disappearing spell I can fish for, somewhere in the back of my mind.

“Could we not access my empathy link when I’m having a panic attack? Like a little privacy would be really cool.” I plead.

“He needs to know!” Roxas insists, but as far as I’m concerned, Lea doesn’t need to know. He needs to get whatever the hell this is out of his system, no matter how much he needs to yell or rage at me and I need to shut the hell up and eat a shit sandwich to make it right with him. Already I want to go back to Shibuya. Maybe hide in a hole with my teenage boy twinsie and just hang out and not process our feelings together.

“No, he really doesn’t.” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose between my index and forefinger while I steer with the other. “I fucked up, okay, I get it, I will personally see to it that Xigbar gets curb stomped.”

“Oh, will you?” Lea snarls.

“I will fight you!” Kairi begins to scramble over her seat, but between Sora and Riku they manage to wrestle her down back into her seat and clip her seatbelt back together. She’s pissed, visibly fuming, but I guess she isn’t the only one in the ship. Sora reaches forward, touching my shoulder gently. While I’m thankful, I don’t think it’s doing anything to improve Lea’s mood, having everyone in the ship treat him like his feelings are invalid. I lick my lower lip just a little and turn to Riku, who makes eye contact with me for just a second before I turn back to space.

“You’ve been quiet about your opinion.” I say. He sighs.

“You did make a mistake, Rueki. It was your job, you were adamant about taking him down, especially since he wanted to fight just you.” Riku reminds me and reassurance of my own guilt washes over me.

“She thought she did, she stabbed him and watched him throw himself off a cliff.” Roxas insists. 

“And that would be fine, if he didn’t come up to her in the aftermath and shove more memories in her head. You wanted peace so badly, Rueki, I don’t understand how you thought it was a good idea to just hide this. And from me, of all people, you have any idea how this makes me feel? Like no matter what I do you don’t trust me enough to let me help you with the things that actually matter?” Lea shouts, and I can’t help it. A tear falls from one eye, then another, and then I’m just sobbing, biting my lip to keep silent, trying to blink back the tears as they form so I can just fly, so I can just get us home, so I can go hide in my bed and pretend I’m not me. 

“I’m sorry.” I say after taking a very deep breath to try to sound level, to try not to sound hysterical. “I’m really sorry.”

“And we know that, that’s why we’re going to go from here.” Riku agrees. “You know it’s not a good situation but...Kairi’s right, we’re not who we were at our worst. But that really means its your responsibility to fix this.”

“Yes.” I reply, trying to speak as little as possible, to conceal as much of my trembling voice as possible. And with that, I try to cauterize the edges of the empathy link to the best of my ability. Because apparently nothing in my own head is sacred and when I’m having trouble controlling it in the first place after all this time, I can’t take any risks. I need to feel them as little as they need to feel me. 

“Rueki?” Riku asks. “It is okay, you know. Sora and Xion are right, we will figure it out, that’s what we’re good for. We’ll go to Master Yen Sid tomorrow, see if he’s been sensing any trouble anywhere and see if he knows anything about this Master of Masters that you and Sora ran into.” I am thankful, I suppose, that Sora caught everyone up on our adventure, but I also know that there are more secrets that I have to conceal, secrets that might break Lea and I. A strange voice in my head, someone named Luxu that I might belong to, some sort of prophecy about an alchemist. These are things that will take some degree of finesse, things that I will need to pepper in at strategic times, something I’m not particularly good at. But the problem now is that I don’t get to focus on what’s natural and what feels good, not when my goal is to keep this love that I hold dear, so safe. 

“Right, sure.” I agree, beyond thankful when we touch down in Twilight Town. My legs can’t move fast enough, and though both Roxas and Kairi reach to me, yearning to comfort in some way, I manage to shake both of them off. Lea doesn’t even make a move in my direction. Del, however, is an impossible bastard of the worst degree and has an arm around me as fast as his legs allow him to catch up to me. “Can you stop.” I grumble.

“Hey, I stayed quiet for you.” He reminds me. “It’s hard when I love you both, and you know, I wasn’t around to decide if you actually fucked up or not.”

“That’s awfully diplomatic of you, but Lea already feels slighted by me, the last thing he needs is everyone telling him he’s wrong.” I insist.

“I can go tell him every other time you’ve been wrong and agree with him and say you’re a bitch if it helps?” He asks and I actually do snort.

“You’re the dumbest person alive.” I reply.

“I know. But you’re one of my best friends, Rueki. And I hate seeing you like this.” He says, as though I don’t already know. 

“You still gonna be my friend if I say that if Xigbar or the Master are causing trouble that I don’t want you involved?” I ask. He presses his lips together, a tight line.

“Yes, but I won’t listen to you.” He nods. Well, there’s that. “I’ve got a Keyblade now, it’s my responsibility to protect the world order.”

“It’s also a lot of other people’s responsibilities. You’re not someone I can handle losing.” I tell him.

“So you’ve got a hierarchy of friends you’re okay with dying?” He teases, though I don’t laugh and immediately he realizes what that implies. “Rueki, that’s fucked up.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” I ask. “If this ends in flames again, I can’t lose any of you that were on the ship. Or Amaya.” But anyone else can be collateral damage and I don’t feel half as bad as I should, saying that.

“What you’re supposed to do is wait it out with the rest of us, until we can talk to Master Yen Sid, and in the meantime, sit on your hands, hang out and have fun. The spares are waiting at your house, so until we actually know if there is a threat, all we can do is enjoy the time we’re given.” Del offers. I roll my eyes.

“Since when are you so practical?” I ask.

“Politics is a bitch, but it did help keep me level.” Del chuckles. “By the way, what is this Xigbar guy to you? I mean, does Lea have a reason to be jealous?”

“Absolutely not.” I say. “But I don’t think it’s jealousy. We just have a shit history with not trusting each other and thinking we know better than the other and going ahead with plans without them. We’re supposed to be better than that history but I spent the past year fucking that up, so that's cool.”

“He’ll forgive you, Rueki.You should’ve seen him when you disappeared into that portal. Full blown lost it. He loves you so much.” Del tries, I shrug. It’d be a lot easier if I could just do what Sora did, rewrite the past and change things so I can be sure Xigbar died. 

“So, by everyone waiting at my house, who do you mean?” I ask, quickly changing the subject.

“Ven, Terra, Aqua, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Hayner, Pence, Olette, Isa, Amaya and Naminé.” And I do notice there’s something different about his tone as he mentions Naminé’s name.

“Dude, no.” I say. He blinks, looking quite confused, which is quite Del. “Naminé is a child and she’s had a real shitty life, give her a chance to just be a kid for a minute!”

“She’s seventeen, almost eighteen. And like… all I’m saying is I wanna get to know her better.” Del tries.

“No.” I order.

“She acts like Amaya and looks like you.” Del says.

“She doesn’t act like Amaya or look like me, you’re just thirsty.” I roll my eyes.

“Okay, but can you blame me? It’s been forever and she’s really cute and really nice, and I will totally wait until she’s legal before I try to be anything more than friends with her, I just want to get to know her.” Del whines.

“I will personally have her rewrite your memory so you keep forgetting her on the daily. She owes me.” She doesn’t, but she certainly thinks she does. Del heaves a mighty sigh.

“You’re a bitch. And wrong about everything. Team Lea.” Del replies, so I pinch him as hard as I can, wiggle away from his grip and go sprinting into my house, unsatisfied until I’m gently warmed and met with the cozy smell of a cooking meal. 

Much of an idiot as he is, I am thankful for Del. No matter the way I try to distance myself from him, he does know me well enough to know how to return me to myself. 

“Rueki!” Instantly, Ven comes clambering off the couch and tackles me in a tight hug. We all but hit the wall and I laugh, though I still do feel detached. 

“What is it with you tall people attacking me?” I laugh loudly, flourishing to get him off of me.Truly, there is one particular person in this house I want to find more than anyone, and it’s not Ven. He pulls off of me, smiling hugely as he grabs my hand and excitedly pulls me into the living room, where Hayner, Pence and Terra are playing against each other in some sort of video game, while Donald and Olette talk over some sort of flyer that she holds. Goofy and Mickey are also locked in some sort of conversation, and thanks to the open floor plan, I see Aqua and Amaya preparing dinner and Namine and Isa helping set the table. “Kids, I’m home.” I say, with forced brightness.

“It’s good to see you Rueki!” Olette beams, green eyes shining.

“Rueki!” Amaya literally throws a spoon into the pot of whatever she’s cooking to come running at me. Lucky for her, Aqua is quick to catch said spoon and pick up where Amaya left off. “We missed you, you can’t just disappear on us, we were scared! You know, it’s been weeks!” 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but I’m back.” I say quickly, peeling Amaya off of me. “What’s for dinner, where’s Lucidia.” And fortunately, I know Amaya well enough to distract her. Because I know what we talked about, I know she’s here for me, I know I felt good and safe and cozy in Amaya’s embrace, but right now, I just really need to disconnect from the influx of too many feelings.

“Oh, she’s upstairs sleeping! You should see her and Aqua, they’ve become the best of friends!” Amaya throws Aqua the most affectionate look I’ve ever seen cross her face and Aqua stifles a giggle, biting her lower lip.

“I just sang to her, she’s a good baby.” Aqua waves a hand. “Maya, how much more oregano does this need?” And Amaya flutters, at Aqua’s complete beck and call, as she looks into the pot and seasons like a sixth sense. “I love the outfit, by the way, Rueki. We’re all so happy to see you. Ven told us the second he felt you and Sora come back.”

“No lecture about me just disappearing into a portal?” I ask, and at this, Aqua can’t hide her laughter. 

“Oh no, I’d have done the same thing for Ven.” She says. “I just wouldn’t recommend doing it again. Between Kairi and Lea, we had to deal with a few mental breakdowns in your absence.” Though I know this is not her intention, I do feel overwhelmingly guilty. Of course she has no idea what went on inside of the Gummi Ship, but my insides clench. This is my fault, there’s too much that’s my fault, if I wasn’t such a selfish cunt this wouldn't be happening, it’s no small miracle that Lea hasn’t left me, I need to do better, be better.

From the kitchen table, Isa turns, brow lifted, as though he can sense my internal struggle. And shit, nothing would surprise me at this point. 

“Has Lea finally wisened up and learned to detach himself from your hip?” Isa inquires. I laugh weakly.

“I missed you so badly dearest, that I ran ahead of the group. How are you, best friend?” I ask, striding over and then, in a low voice so that only he can hear “where’s the booze?”

“Refrigerator for taste, freezer for results.” He mutters, voice dipped low. I pat him on the back and he scoffs loudly. “Never touch me.”

“Can’t help myself. I spend all my time on my back, remember?” I breeze past him to smile quickly at Naminé. “Give me one second, kiddo.”

“Rueki.” She sets down the plates and instead of giving me one second, follows me to the freezer. I’m sure if I were to look at her, my own racing thoughts might be echoed in the light of her eyes, so I don’t turn around, not until I pull out some sort of amber colored liquid and take a long pull. It tastes about as appealing as nail polish remover, I nearly spit it out, but instead, I go back for another, and another, already feeling warm as it sears down my throat. “Rueki, that’s hardly the solution.” She breathes as I return the bottle. 

“I just came back from the dead, all the more reason to celebrate, right?” Though I suppose I didn’t technically die. 

“I can see into your memories.” She sighs, tucking her wispy hair behind her ear. My mouth twists into a pout.

“Nosey teenagers, all of you.” I reply.

“We can talk if you’d like. Ventus relayed a large amount of your journey to the king already, we have plans to meet with Master Yen Sid tomorrow.” She says, ringing her hands but I just shake my head.

“Nam, I really don’t want to talk about another impending nightmare.” I admit. 

“Yes. I’m sorry.” She bows her head but I squeeze her arm as everyone starts to filter into the door, Kairi all but skipping through. Olette’s eyes light up and she races over to the redhead, throwing her arms around her. The two exchange pleasantries as Sora runs to Donald and Goofy and Riku finds his way to Mickey. Xion and Roxas return to where Hayner and Pence are still locked into some sort of game, but Lea strides through, hands in his pockets, face carefully blank. It’s not lost on me the fact that he won’t take a look at me. I bite my lip, Namine reaches for my hand. “He does love you, Rueki.”

But I don’t particularly want to have this conversation either. So, with every bit of gala enthusiasm I can muster I tuck into the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of champagne. 

“So celebration?” I ask as Del scampers toward Amaya and I.

“Yes, definitely.” Del nods. 

“And what would lead you to believe that belongs to you?” Isa asks me as Lea approaches him, arms crossed to his chest. 

“It’s my fucking house.” I smile, hugely. Though, if I’m being honest, I don’t even know how to open the thing. So, I hand the bottle off to Del and contemplate who best I can avoid my feelings around. Not Del and Amaya, certainly not, between the two of them, they will attempt to weasel something out of me, which will lead to the type of blow out that I don’t want to face. Nor Roxas and Xion, who will certainly recall the state I was in when Kairi died and be too focused in on my fragile mental health. I could pretend to consort with Riku and Mickey, but I’m sure the conversation will lead to what’s being discussed with Yen Sid tomorrow. So, I opt for the best option I can fathom. “Yo, Kai?” She looks up right as Del pops open the bottle of champagne. I snatch it out of his hand and hold it in the air. Her eyes light up.

“Yes.” She decides, pushing herself off the ground beside Olette, opting instead for acting the fool with me. “You don’t even drink though.”

“I mean, it’s celebratory. You’re back. I’m back, that’s a celebration.” I insist. She giggles and grabs my hand. 

“Can we sneak up to the roof or something? I feel like we have so much to catch up on.” And I feel like we have nothing I want to talk about to catch up on, but I’m sure with a fair amount of bubbles in her, she’ll be buzzing in no time, and I can use that to distract her. 

“We can sneak up to the roof.” I concede. No one thinks anything of it when she and I disappear. No one asks questions, there’s not even a comment made about how thankful Lea must be that I’m back, there’s no one to even chastise me for dipping out the way I did. It’s just me and Kairi and there's something so wonderful about that. We find our way into mine and Lea’s room, and I tear open the window, which offers just enough of a ledge that we may sit atop it. She giggles sweetly, taking a drink straight from the bottle, which she has promptly torn from my hands.

“You know, this isn’t bad.” She says. “Kind of like a really bitter grape juice.”

“Great sales point.” I snort, climbing out onto the roof. She follows me and tucks the bottle between her knees, eyes bright as we stare into the back yard.

“It’s beautiful here, Rueki. It’s everything you wanted.” She beams.

“It is now.” I set my head against her shoulder and to my complete surprise, she starts to tremble. My eyes go huge, I sit up straight. “You cold or something?”

“No.” And I hear the effort in her voice, the strain to suppress tears. 

“Oh, Kai.” I sigh and throw my arms around her. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t know… I don’t know what to say Rueki, Lea told me how bad you hurt after I went away, and I didn’t mean to do that to you, but I couldn’t let Xemnas take him. Not after how hard he worked, he deserved to be happy, I just love him so much.” Sora, she doesn’t need to say his name, the way she says the word ‘him’ with deity like awe is enough. 

“Stop.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to go back there in my own head. I don’t ever want to go back.” 

“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen.” She insists.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do. You’re my best friend ever, I love you so much. And you’re home. Lea helped me heal around your absence, but you’re back and that’s all that matters. Just never do that to me again, Kairi. I cannot lose you again.” I order. She laughs, meekly. 

“What are we supposed to do with Xigbar being back?” She asks, voice soft, feather light, but even that weighs too much. I pull away from her, grabbing the bottle of champagne as I do. I take a long drink from it, wrinkling my nose. Kairi’s not too far off, it does just taste like really shitty grape juice. I have no idea what my limits are but three shots and half a bottle of champagne should help me block out her absence, Xigbar’s return and Lea’s grudge, right? I take another long drink and tuck the bottle into my arm.

“We’re gonna let it be and we’re not going to get involved.” I mutter.

“I don’t think that’s really an option, Rueki, he found us.” She reminds me.

“So we see what the fuck he wants and tell him we’re not getting involved. I’m not doing this again. You can’t tell me in all the worlds ever that I’ve befriended the only existing group of Keybearers. We fought one war, it ate away your childhood. We’re not doing this shit again, we can’t keep living like this. There has to be someone else.” I shake my head.

“No, Rueki, that’s why we got Keyblades, to defend the worlds.” She insists.

“Kai, I’m not having this conversation right now, I didn’t pull you the fuck up here to talk about the world ending around us again!” I snap.

“No, you pulled me up here because you don’t want to tell Lea he’s being a fucking asshole.” She slams her hand down on the roof. I take another long drink and she groans. “Fucking stop, Rueki! If this is your idea of healing, you’re a damn idiot!”

“He’s not an asshole. You have no idea how I treated him, what he had to put up with to get me back to normal. I was not a good person to be with.” I tell her.

“He’s your husband, that’s his job.” She swears.

“I fucking electrocuted him, Kairi. I thought of ways I could kill Xion so maybe I could sacrifice her and bring you back. I disappeared to sleep in your house half the time. I tried to leave him because he wasn’t safe around me. And through all that? He takes me on some sort of mental health vacation. You tell me how the fuck I deserved that. Because I didn’t. I was a piece of trash, I should be thankful he stayed, and I shouldn’t have kept a secret from him.” I murmur.

“And he should be lucky you stayed when he ditched you to kidnap me and you got tortured or when he guilted you into killing Zexion or when you guys came back and he looked for Saix and not you. You’ve both done shitty things to each other at different times, if anything, he needs to be reminded that he had his turn, you’re entitled to yours.” She offers, I scoff.

“Yeah, equivalence doesn’t work like that.” I say flatly.

“You couldn’t give him your one hundred, Rueki. It’s his job as your partner to make up for what you couldn’t. Don’t guilt yourself into thinking otherwise.” She tries. I take another long drink, and thankfully, I do feel pleasant tingles beginning in my arms, my shoulders, my fingertips. My insides are starting to warm just a little. I can stoke my own fire. 

“I think I would’ve killed myself without him.” I confess, dragging my teeth across my lower lip. I don’t want this, I don’t want this stupid fucking confession, not when internally something is starting to shift, not when I’m starting to tolerate the taste of this drink. I take another drink and Kairi huffs, snatching the bottle from me. “Hey!”

“You can’t just fucking drop that shit, Rueki!” She shouts. “And don’t you dare, would you have wanted me to do the same without you?” 

“Fuck off, it’s not the same.” I shake my head.

“It is.” She says, with a tone of finality. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you ever do that.”

“Well I don’t want to now.” I huff. “I just want to maybe get drunk with my best friend and tease her about not kissing her little boyfriend yet.” 

She narrows her eyes, fixing her lips into a pout.

“You look pretty cute like that, we can make out a little if you want.” I tell her and at this, she actually laughs.

“Is he not satisfying you? We can totally run away together.” She finally concedes, taking a drink herself. Though whether it’s because she’s decided I’m a lost cause or she just wants to join me on this journey to drunken giggles, I’m unsure. “You know, I don’t even know if Sora likes me. I can’t just like make a move and ruin the friendship.” She drinks again and again and with each passing moment, I begin to feel it more. The unwinding of my body, the releasing of my inhibitions. I steal the bottle back from her and take another drink of my own.

“Literally everyone and their mothers know that you and Sora like each other. You are a ballsy girl, don’t let him steal your thunder by making the first move first!” I insist.

“No, I’ll just let him bend me over in the library.” She teases. “You didn’t even use protection, I’m not taking your advice.”

“I’ve got an implant, you dick. Also, mind your business.” I chastise.

“You’re the one who showed me all of your memories. All of them. Like too many of them.” She says, making a face. I extend the bottle to her and she takes an absolutely huge drink. 

“I was still learning the empathy link then. By the way, are you slut shaming me? Cuz I’ll push you off this roof.” I giggle, leaning back into the singles, arms linked behind my head. This does feel nice, and I do get it, why people chase this. This sort of loss of control unwinds everything inside of me, not utterly unlike an orgasm. 

“I’m seriously so proud that you’re learning modern slang. You’re growing up.” She giggles. “Can we take a selfie, can you be my hashtag woman crush every day?”

“Um definitely. How much of a slob do I look like?” I ask.

“Not at all, you look super hot, especially in that outfit.” She answers as I fumble for my phone. My hands feel huge and clumsy, and it makes me laugh, the beautiful silliness. 

“Do you like the red in my hair? That was for you.” I say.

“Oh Rueki!” She sighs, putting a hand to her heart. “I love it. I’ll get a blonde streak for you.”

“I can totally do that now. I can magic, remember?” I ask. She seems to debate this a moment, takes another drink and shrugs.

“Okay, do me up. Just don’t make me bald.” And I don’t, but feeling spicy like this, I do get a little creative. She gets a blonde streak, but she also gets the cutest little undercut. I shave out a small triangle on the side of her head, make her bob something swingy and asymmetrical, so that one side --the side with the undercut-- is just below her ear and the side with the blonde streak brushes her collar bone. I hold up the camera, and for the first time, she sees herself and grins hugely. “I look like a badass.”

“You look so badass.” I agree.

“I love it, I love you.” She takes another drink and giggles loudly. “I love champagne.” 

I kiss her cheek and snap a photo, quickly captioning it with ‘woman crush every day’ before posting it to Kingstagram. 

“We can go shopping tomorrow.” I offer. “Get you a badass outfit.” 

“But we’re supposed to meet Master Yen Sid tomorrow.” She reminds me, making a face.

“I’m vetoing that meeting, we’re going shopping.” I say. She laughs, such a sweet little sound as she takes another drink.

“What should I get?” She asks.

“Probably lingerie so you can bang your boyfriend.” I offer.

“Rueki!” She snaps.

“What, you’re only a couple months from eighteen.” I remind her, though I realize, she might not know this. “You know you were gone for a year right?” 

“Yeah, yeah. But does that mean I’m almost eighteen or does that mean I’m just gonna be seventeen for a really long time?” She ponders.

“Gross, this is getting too existential. I counted my time when I was dead as aging. So you have to, too.” I demand.

“So less high school?” She asks and I howl out a laugh as I take a drink of my own.

“Dude, it’s straight up been almost two years since you were last in high school, I think you’re considered a dropout.” I say.

“Makes me even more badass.” She says. 

“Not really. Get your GED, you fucking slacker.” I nudge her. She giggles hysterically, nudging me back. “And kiss your boyfriend, stop being so chicken shit.” I swat her. 

“You kiss your boyfriend.” She laughs. “Let's go talk to him.” She suggests. 

“Dude no.” I shake my head.

“Dude yes.” She counters. For whatever reason this is quite hilarious. I take another drink of champagne and pass it back to her. She passes it to me when she's done with her drink, but to my dismay, there's nothing left. 

“We ran out.” I make a face.

“Shit. Am I drunk?” She asks, flopping out onto the roof. 

“Man I have no idea. I might be. I feel warm. And you're hilarious.” I say.

“But I'm always hilarious.” She counters.

“Are you two seriously drunk? You've not even been home an hour.” Amaya's voice causes Kairi to quite literally scream, and this is hysterical. I snort out an obnoxious laugh. “You're too cute.”

“No you are, join us.” I encourage.

“No, I'm just here to tell you dinner is ready.” Amaya protests, waving her hands. “Besides, Aqua and I are having a delightful time.” 

“Well invite your girlfriend up here, too!” I try.

“Aqua and Amaya sitting in a tree.” Kairi sings, swinging her feet back and forth.

“Could you stop.” Amaya huffs and even in my drunken state I sense a shift. Oh? “Don’t give me that look, Rueki.” 

“Is this a thing, when did you and Aqua--” I begin, but Amaya groans.

“It’s not a thing and we haven’t. It’s just...I enjoy her company, she’s a lovely woman.” Amaya twists her hands, but quicky remembers herself, shaking her head. I’m utterly fixated by the way her dark hair brushes her fair skin in this lighting. Damn, I am drunk. “Anyhow, are you coming to dinner because it’s ready and Lea has been asking about you.”

“Oh, has he?” Kairi scowls, flailing as she sits up. “What’s for dinner.” 

“We made chicken parm.” Amaya says. 

“You should bring it up to us.” I suggest.

“Rueki’s avoiding her problems.” Kairi informs her.

“In typical Rueki fashion.” Amaya sighs. “What’s the matter, what are you avoiding?”

“Stop, I don’t want to.” I shake my head, hiding my face in my hands. “Just bring me food. And maybe go grab us some wine or something.”

“Yes, all of the wine!” Kairi agrees. “Maybe some chips too, can you make us nachos?”

“Nachos sound great.” I nod, hands falling away from my face as excitement overpowers. “Wine and nachos, please?” I jut a hand forward and Amaya, to her grace, laughs, breezily. 

“Well it’s good to see you’re having fun, but I’m not making you nachos and I’m not a delivery service.” She informs us.

“Dude, you’re so ballsy now. It’s wonderful.” I say. “But I definitely need wine.”

“And nachos.” Kairi insists. 

“I’m not bringing you wine and nachos, if you want food, come down and get it or between Del and Sora, we’ll be out of food in about ten minutes.” She winks, and with that, she turns back around and heads down the stairs. I heave a mighty sigh, mouth twisting into a pout. 

“Well now what?” Kairi huffs.

“Um, I think I got this one.” I say, biting my lip as I try to visualize heaping plates of food and the bottle of amber colored liquid that I started plucking away at when I arrived home. With the wave of my hand, I’m met with a sad little half success. Just the booze, although I suppose things could be worse. “Hmm, I was hoping for food too.”

“Okay, but that was dope! Did you literally just summon us alcohol?” Kairi grins, sitting up.

“I guess it must only work for things that I know exist?” Maybe the food hasn't been plated? But I’m not too interested in thinking through specifics. I take a swing and make a face. It's not as delicious as the champagne, but the burn doesn’t sting nearly as much as it did earlier. I’m actually quite satisfied with the warmth that radiates through my insides.

“What’s that?” Kairi asks. 

“Whiskey, maybe?” I question, cocking my head to the side. “It’s not good.” But I take another drink anyway, before passing it over to her. She takes a long drink, too long of a drink possibly because she coughs dramatically as she struggles to swallow.

“No shit it's not good.” She makes a face. “This is awful. Why does anyone want to drink this?”

“I dunno man, some people just suck.” I say, but I take the bottle back and take another drink. Kairi giggles and follows my suit. 

Seconds and lifetimes pass between the two of us, and to my pleasure, it feels like no time has passed since that last time I saw her. We shop online, we take another dozen selfies, we drunk dial Sora and I ask him if he shared a paopu fruit with Kairi as a friend or as a girlfriend and she gets flustered and hangs up. We snort laughing as many times as we clutch each other crying and I can’t even begin to explain how thankful I feel to have her here in my home, to have her back in my life. There’s that extistential gnawing at the back of my mind, even on the rise of my stupid drunkeness, that makes me wonder what would have been different if things were this way after the war. If this silly, sweet girl and I had come back here, beaten and bruised in the worst of ways but very much alive. Would we have drank like this? Would we have cried more? Would I congratulate her as she finally threw her arms around Sora’s neck and pressed her lips to his? Would she have taken my hand and insisted I crack down on wedding planning immediately? How much ache would I have been spared? And would this strange, demonic thing inside of me still have been allowed to surface?

It’s absolutely frigid and pitch black out before more footsteps approach us, but when they do, we both jump, Kairi and I both letting out high pitched laughs. I blink back the inevitable spots that come from staring into the light and grin, woes forgotten.

“You’re hot.” I smirk.

“You’re really drunk.” Lea observes, massive hands in his pockets, and my thoughts take a turn, snatching for something vulgar. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give for one of those long, thick fingers inside of me. I shudder, gripping Kairi’s arm.

“I am.” I agree. “You’re still hot. Can we sleep together?”

Lea chuckles, rolling his eyes as he leans out onto the rooftop, grabs me beneath my arm, effectively dragging me inside. I yelp as he sets me on my feet, and abruptly, I realize how unstable my legs are. I hit the ground, and were I sober, I’d probably be thankful Kairi has the whiskey, and my phone is in my holster. 

“You need help, Kai or can you move on your own?” Lea asks, head cocked to the side as I sit and admire the tilt of his hips. Fuck, he’s a portrait. 

“I can move.” Kairi protests, though the bottle of whiskey slips out of her hands, clambers down the roof and hits the lawn as she struggles through the window. She does a graceless little tuck and roll and sprawls out across the floor. “I can do anything.”

“Sure you can, princess.” He agrees. “Riku.” 

Riku appears, coming through the door with hard eyes and a set jaw.

“Riku!” Kairi beams, stretching out her arms, wiggling her fingers. 

“You can’t even give me a full twenty four hours of peace before this?” Riku shakes his head.

“Riku, do you like what Rueki did to my hair? I love her so much.” Kairi nearly swoons as Riku scoops her up, helping her to her feet. “Riku, I’ve got a question.” Kairi holds her hands out as Riku sets his hands on her shoulders, helping her toward the door. “Can I have nachos?”

“Sure, we’re gonna go get nachos now.” Riku agrees, and I am so jealous because I too, want nachos.

“I’m hungry, too.” I whine.

“Don’t keep me away from Rueki, I love her!” Kairi pouts. “Hey Axel, um, if you… like if you break her heart, I’ll poison your coffee.”

“Kai!” I complain. “I don’t wanna do this.”

“No, I’m gonna do this. You can’t leave her and like… I will sit outside of your door all night. If I hear her cry once… murder.” Kairi waves her fingers in a spooky way, which has me hiding my face in my hands, because I genuinely do not want to do this.

“Right, murder. Drink some water, princess, I promise Rueki’s in good hands.” Lea shakes his head. He heaves a mighty sigh, closes the door as Kairi and Riku depart and turns back to me.

“Are you gonna leave me?” I blurt, stupidly.

“Why are you so convinced I’m leaving you, Rueks?” He asks, head tilted. 

“Cuz I’m the worst. And I fucked up.” I scrunch up my nose.

“And I’m real fucking mad and we can go over that in the morning.” He agrees, so I shake my head.

“No, no. I don’t want to talk. I’m the worst, I’ll never do it again. Just don’t go.” I plead.

“Baby, I’m not going anywhere.” He assures me, coming over to sit beside me. He takes my hands into his and kisses my knuckles. “Is this some sort of anxiety thing?” He asks. I shrug.

“I just want you to get over it and let’s forget this ever happened.” I suggest.

“Maybe for the time being I get some water into you and we wash your face and brush your teeth and go to bed?” He counters. 

“Am I embarrassing?” I ask and he barks out a laugh. 

“You’re cute, Rueks. I’m jealous as hell of the princess though. Wish it was me getting sloppy drunk with you.” He grins, tucking my hair behind my ears. I fix my mouth into a pout. 

“Well let's summon some booze.” I insist. And with the wave of my hand, a six pack of the beer that I know Isa keeps in the refrigerator appears beside us. Lea blinks, thin brow raised. “Tada.” I offer.

“How can you use a summoning spell drunk?” He asks. “Are you practicing magic on the sly, sweetheart?” 

“No, I just want drinks.” I say, not fully comprehending. “Drink with me.” I plead, taking a beer from the pack, oblivious to the fact that Isa may well lose his shit over my theft tomorrow. 

“I really don’t think you need another, you don’t need to get sick, got it memorized?” Lea takes the beer out of my hand but does crack it open for himself. He takes a swig and winks at me. 

“I want to hang out with you, though.” I protest. He grins, lacing his fingers through the back of my hair so that he may duck my head just low enough to kiss the top of it. I take matters into my own hands, leaning forward to place a wet, suckling kiss along the curve of his neck. The softest of groans spills from his lips, but Lea shakes his head.

“Rueks, you are drunk as hell. Let’s wait.” He says evenly, patiently. I take this as a suggestion to take off my top. “Rueki.” He sighs, trying to stop me. When he’s unable to, he removes his vest and puts it on me. 

“I just want you. Please, Lea. I like when we solve things like this.” I tell him, hands flying to his button up. He takes another swig of beer, sets it down and catches my hands in his as I struggle with his buttons. 

“I do too, but not now.” He insists. I bite my lip.

“Do you not like my lipstick?” I ask. He blinks, eyes wide.

“What?” He asks.

“Is that why you don’t want me anymore?” I pout.

“Oh, honey, I can promise, if you were sober, I’d bend you over the bed right the fuck now.” He assures me, pressing his lips to my temple.

“I just feel so bad.” I shake my head. “I just… you were so good to me and I let fucking Xigbar live, and I just don’t know how I’m supposed to make this right, I mean like I’ll kill him, but I want things to be good between us, I can’t lose you, Lea.”

“Rueki, you’re not losing me, so stop thinking that way.” He sighs, pulling me in, maneuvering me so that my back is to his chest and I’m seated between his legs. “You should summon yourself some water. And maybe some food.” He tries, but I shake my head, pouting once more. For as swiftly as my brain found its own high, it crashes to the nastiest of lows. I’m not wanted, I’m not loved, I was a fun charity case and now I’m without need. I failed at the most basic of tasks, Lea will lose patience, Lea will realize he deserves better. My friends won’t forgive my failure. 

“No, let’s just go to bed.” I push myself up, shaky legs barely able to handle my weight. Lea stands behind me, hands on my waist as he holds me steady.

“Rueki, come on, I’m just trying to take care of you.” Lea promises, and I’m sure he is. My own utter dread is an anchor in me though, and even he can’t lift me. So I’ll be easy, I think, as he washes my face, as he brushes my hair, as I brush my teeth and he brings me water and painkillers. As I change into something comfortable and crawl into bed, trying with everything in me not to turn into a statue the second he sinks down beside me.

He kisses my hair and tells me all is well, swears he loves me. But I find new ways to dig myself holes until I’m finally comfortable, buried in my own anxious misery. 

It’s cold, it’s dark. It’s so perfectly familiar.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another year worth of story comes and goes, hot damn. It's so crazy, reflecting back on what this story has done for me and what Rueki in general has done for me. I'm so thankful for this story and even more so for all of you still reading this. I know the lull between KH3 and Re:Mind has had people losing interest in the fandom, not everyone injects Kingdom Hearts into their veins like I do, I totally get it. 
> 
> That being said, I love you guys and have a happy new year, the next post will be in 2020

V.

Drunken nightmares are infinitely worse than sober ones. 

I can take the monsters under my bed, or a fist around my throat. What I cannot handle is the endless falling, slipping away from the light faster and faster by the second. I reach out, screaming for it and am met by something that isn’t arms but is humanoid as it morphs around me.

“I wanna go home.” I sob.

“You are.” There’s a familiarity to the voice, but something off about it that I can’t place, and while I don’t search for shelter in it, I do take comfort in knowing something will catch my fall. For the first time, I’m not the test dummy. We touch down on something sterile and smooth and cold. My bare feet hit the surface and between the two of us, we dance. I never see their face, and there’s no intimacy to the movements. Instead, they move a hand and I react, the perfect puppet on strings, twirling about the surface we stand on, performing elegant pirouettes that I should not be capable of. I can’t deny I’m living for it, head over heels, fixated on my own talent. I think, yes, this is how I’m meant to move, this is what happens when the chains come off, when I’m no longer tethered. This is how I’m made to move. “Just like that, just right.” The voice instructs, so praising, so pleased that I don’t even open my eyes to watch lightning strike with each of my movements.

When I wake, there is no scream, no hammering heart. Instead, it’s all racing thoughts and a tight throat. The fact that Lea is squeezing me as tight to his chest as he can possibly manage, without shattering me, doesn’t help. There’s no outright horror, there’s no need to prove to myself that Kairi’s ghost isn’t mocking me or that Saix isn’t beating me. I know where I’m at, but I still make an effort to curl my toes and clench my fists, just to prove I can. There’s something distressing about the puppet on a string, a strange sort of phobia centered around it, as though my own veins are extensions of the puppet master’s ties, and are therefore not to be trusted. But I’ve had far more brutal dreams, and more to the point, Lea is starting to stir beside me. It’s early in the morning I’m certain, far earlier than anyone else might be awake. I’m parched, my head doesn’t feel extraordinary, my body is sluggish, but I suppose this could be worse.

“How hungover are you?” Lea breathes, not even opening his eyes. I smile the tiniest bit, because only he could sense me waking without even looking.

“I could use some water and a Potion, but I’ve felt worse.” I shrug, he squeezes me tighter. “You trying to cuff me to the bed?”

“You were being weird last night.” He reminds me, which has my mouth curling into a pout.

“Doesn’t sound like me.” I shake my head. “Hey, weren’t we supposed to bang it out this morning? I think I remember something about banging it out.” I feel like I remember a reasonable amount of the previous night. Ignoring my emotions with Kairi, begging Amaya for nachos, posting selfies, hitting on Lea, and having an existential crisis before bed. All things considered, I’ve had weirder nights. Lot of weird in betweens I'm tolerating lately.

“Why am I not surprised that’s what you remember?” Lea teases, kissing my temple. “Well, you were being weird, like you do. And you weren’t willing to talk to me, like normal. I got to hear all night about how upset you were from Roxas--the kid loves you by the way, like a lot more than me. And Kairi said something about me breaking your heart, which prompted you to ask me if I was gonna leave you. Real eventful night, I can’t say being your husband isn’t exciting. Regardless, I thought you were gonna disappear on me and I was gonna end up finding you on the clock tower or something.”

“You know, I really don’t love being grouped with mental break down Rueki. She was a different woman, I don’t know her.” I roll my eyes.

“The level that you’re on. Only someone like you could marry me.” Lea chuckles, smirk apparent in his voice. 

“I’m gonna level with you, I really hate this. I remember you saying that you were mad at me last night, so if you could maybe scream at me, that’d be cool.” I say. 

“I am mad. I’m fucking pissed.” He says, though his voice conveys otherwise, tone soft. To be honest, I think I’d prefer him throwing things. He heaves a sigh, instead. “But at this point, I don’t have a damn clue what to do. We’re meeting with Yen Sid today, I guess we figure it out from there… Sweetheart, why the fuck couldn’t you just tell me that you knew Xigbar was alive? I mean, you knew. You fucking knew.” And his tone does raise a little, a little more fire burns inside of him, but it’s hardly enough to scorch me properly. 

“Roxas told you.” I grumble.

“And I’m asking the woman I married, not the teenager who walks in her heart.” Lea huffs.

“I just…” I’m not quite sure what I ‘just’, but I do bunch the fabric of the sheets behind him, trying to displace some tension. I don’t think he’s gonna let me off easy. I guess this has to be like ripping a bandaid off. “Kairi died, and I think I did too a little bit and I couldn’t think of anything except how much I missed her and hated everyone else for living. And by the time you finally pulled me back from inside myself, I just wanted so badly to feel good, I didn’t want to think about him, or whatever weird shit he’s up to. Literally no one knows what Xigbar was thinking, it could have been unimportant, there was no way for me to know, and we’d gone so long without seeing him, I thought he was just doing what we were doing and had moved on.”

And I guess I should have known Xigbar’s weird muttering to me in the Keyblade Graveyard meant something to him, and I should have known that he certainly wasn’t moving on after promising me that things weren’t done yet. But there’s one thing that I fixated on, I truly did want so bad to just feel good. Dear Twilight, do I ever want to forget the war, to forget the ache, to forget how tenative my mental recovery is in light of everything. Once again, I’m scrambling to pick up pieces and can’t even gather them as fast as they’re falling. There’s this deep fear of control loss again; and again, I don’t trust my own body. I make a motion to turn away from Lea, but he holds me tighter.

“I just wanted to feel good.” I repeat myself. 

Lea’s silent for too long, so long that I begin calculating ways to put distance between the two of us. Get me out of here, get me away, this is too much, too close, too vulnerable. 

“I wish you would’ve just told me. I get it, Rueki. You know I do.” He reminds me, and he’s right, I do know. It’s not like there was any shortage of truth neglect when all he wanted was to preserve who I was under the weight of Organization XIII, or when he wanted to play like he loved me when he thought he couldn’t. The problem is though, that it was so easy for me to be high and mighty and demand honesty then, and now that I’m the one in the wrong, I just want him to get over feeling his feelings as quick as humanly possible. The tables have turned in the worst of ways. “But how many times do we need to keep shit from each other before we learn better?” He asks. 

“I feel like we’ve gotta be getting close.” I mutter and he snorts. “I love you, and I’m really sorry, Lea. Whatever you need from me to remedy this, you know I will, seriously just say the word.”

“I know, Rueks, I’ve never worried about that. I love you too, but it’s fucking aggrivating. That’s all.” He confesses, a hand moves from me to gingerly rub the back of his neck, so I nuzzle in closer, twisting into collar bones that are sharp enough to bruise. “Is there anything else I need to know about this Xigbar nonsense? I mean, the last thing I need is him thinking he’s got a leg up cuz he got to spend four seconds with you.” 

“I mean, he just kind of mumbled to himself and said this wasn’t over.” I confess, because there’s not really much more to it. The gross gut feeling that I’m missing a piece of something and that if I could step away, I could decipher the truth, is just that: a gut feeling. And there’s a high probability that a former seeker of darkness is unrelated to the Master of Masters, someone who claims to seek light. Granted it’s been less than a day, but thus far, the promise he made has been kept. I haven’t seen or heard from the Master since Sora woke Shibuya, I count that as a victory. 

“You sure there’s nothing else?” He asks me, my stomach drops and defensiveness is my first reaction.

“You can just fucking say you don’t trust me, Axel.” I snap, making a move to push myself away again, and this time, he lets me, he falters in just the slightest way and I take full advantage. Twisting away, I get as far as throwing my legs over the side of the bed, before I freeze up, gripping the sheets with bone white knuckles. What the fuck is my problem all the time? I had a damn meltdown the other night, and begged him not to leave me, and today I’m ready to snap and walk away? I know what I want, I’m smart enough to take the steps I need, so why the fuck can’t I just answer his question like a normal damn human being? “Sorry. Lea.”

“You know, it’s a lot more fun when you use that name cuz I got you flustered in a different type of way.” He confesses, and behind me, I hear him turn over. My gaze flicks back to see him on his back, staring at the ceiling, arms folded behind his head. 

“Yeah, it is.” I mutter. “I didn’t mean to get so pissy, I never do. I just wish this was all done and we didn’t need to be having this conversation.”

“You and me both. Here I was, thinking we finally made it, onto the happy ending we’ve been promising ourselves for what, over three years now?” He asks. “I could’ve fucking skinned Xigbar. It was hard enough, you just up and dipping out, but we had a plan, we made it through Shinjuku and Roxas, Del and Xion were on their way to you. It’s like every time we see a light, it’s just leading us to another beginning.” 

“I just wanna work a job and come home to you and not have to contemplate which friends I could suffer through losing.” I explain, and I know it’s fucked up to say aloud again, but as I do, I realize that he’s the only one who would understand exactly what I mean. Having to contemplate who I could stand to lose between Roxas and Xion is a position that only he was in with me, and not for the first time, I’m so thankful to have Lea on my side. The hell we’ve been through at least counts for something, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need it to stop.

“I know. You’ve got no clue how nice the past month before we went to the Islands was. Sure wish I wouldn’t have convinced you to go, no shit on Kairi or anything.” He insists, and I think it still stands, I would have done anything to get her back, if anything were in my power, but he’s right, if there was a way we could’ve made that possible without the rest of the nightmares coming to fruition, that would’ve been so sweet. “But that’s why we’re going to Yen Sid today. You and Kairi missed it all, but Sora filled us in on everything with this Master of Masters character and Mickey hasn’t heard of him, but both Isa and Terra remembered something from the time Xehanort spent inside their hearts. And Ven got a hell of a headache, so who knows what’s up there. Regardless, we need more information. I know it’s not easy baby, but you’ve gotta at least try not to get too bent out of shape until then. And, you know, maybe keep me out of the dark. Let me know if you need me to support you. Cuz I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it by now.”

“That’s really good of you and I’m not trying to be unappreciative, but can we maybe just opt out of this whole meeting thing?” I ask, running a hand through my hair. Behind me, Lea snorts. “I’m being serious.”

“Rueki, I have a Keyblade, I kinda think sitting out isn’t an option for me anymore.” I turn to Lea to see him making an uncomfortable face behind me. I drag a knee up to my chest and wrap my arms around it as though somehow my body can be a pillar. 

“We got here because we didn’t run the fuck away the first chance we got. That was a mistake.” I say.

“So you’d take everything we’ve earned away so that the two of us could be off, hiding somewhere? No Roxas, no Kairi, no friends, no house?” He asks.

“Yes.” I say quickly, easily. “And I think we should. The Master claims he’s a light seeker, that doesn’t sound outwardly threatening.” And as the words leave my mouth, Lea snorts out a laugh. I’m hardly surprised by such a reaction.

“Since when are you oh so easily convinced, sweetheart?” He asks.

“Since I want things to be good.” I confess, biting my lip. “Being stupid is easier, right?”

“Oh, Rueks.” He pushes himself up and curls around me on instinct, kissing the curve of my neck. “You don’t have to be stupid to have hope.”

“I feel like as it stands, any of us being hopeful is stupid.” I mutter. “I just want to be at home.” Lea laces his fingers through mine and brings our joint hands up so that he may kiss my knuckles and fingertips. 

“You are. You’re right here.” He assures me, squeezing me tight. “Sit tight, sweetheart, you know I’ve got you.”

“I know you do, and that’s why I can’t lose you. What if we fight this… whatever, and you don’t make it? What about me then, Lea?” My voice cracks, popping like lightning, but I bite down on my lip, trapping in any other embarrassingly weak noises. 

“Baby, I promise you I’m not going anywhere, got it memorized?” He asks in the softest, most level voice I have ever heard him speak in. “No matter what happens now, you and I have a promise to make, alright? The both of us stay alive. No matter what, it’s about you and me sweetheart. Anything else we can get through.” He is of course, right. I would die without any of my friends, but without Lea? There are no words for the depth of the darkness that would crush me. Truly there are fates worse than death. But his words don't soften my anxiety. My throat constricts, I screw my eyes shut. There is nothing more I want to do then drown myself in his embrace, kill my pain with his love. Still, nothing changes how small and fragile I feel. A glass doll in his arms, I sob violently, chomping my lips to shreds. He’s an absolute rock, but I know him well enough to know that each kiss, each squeeze, the brush of his hands against my arms, are all telltale signs that he too, is using me to cling to reality. I don’t know, between the two of us, if we could even begin to compare battle scars. I don’t think it’s a competition anymore, but damn, if we’re not both shattered.

There’s nothing sexy about him scooping me up, undressing me and helping me into the shower. There’s nothing outwardly tantric about me scrubbing his hair or his body. There’s nothing erotic about the two of us standing, chest to chest, holding one another as water runs over us. But these little attempts to care for the other are all we have, right now. I will never not be thankful for the way I feel as we attempt to put each other back together.

I’m equipped with all the beauty of a drowned rat when we find our way downstairs, where almost everyone is starting in on some gorgeous looking french toast that Amaya and Aqua likely concocted. My eyes find Kairi. She’s puffy faced and has dark circles for days, her hair is staticy and she’s clearly not in a pleasant mood. At the very least, my hangover isn’t that bad, though I don’t take any pleasure in her suffering. I toss a Potion her way and Sora catches it for her while she groans, putting her head in her hands.

“Could you be walking any louder?” She complains. Oh, poor girl.

“Come on, Kairi, just drink.” Sora encourages, holding out the Potion to her. She makes a retching noise as he uncaps it but follows orders and does, admittedly, look a lot better off after she drinks. She doesn’t thank me though, instead, she just falls even further forward, setting her head down in her own lap. 

Mickey, Riku and Aqua sit at the head of the group.

“So, onto the Mysterious Tower?” I raise an eyebrow. 

“Well, Master Yen Sid is on his way here, actually.” Mickey confesses. Lea chokes. 

“The house is a mess.” He protests beside me. This does finally earn a laugh from Kairi and well, everyone. 

“It was just easier for the King to send for Master Yen Sid then try to bring all of us there. Especially since there are so many of us.” Aqua explains, and she is correct. Hayner, Pence and Olette are missing, but beyond them, there are eleven Keybearers, Naminé, Isa, Donald, Goofy, Amaya and I. I don’t even know if all of us would fit in the spire, and the likelihood of anyone volunteering to stay home is nonexistent. 

“Well, how long before he gets here?” Lea runs a hand anxiously through his damp hair. 

A bright light flashes right behind where Mickey, Aqua and Riku sit and I hear Lea huff beside me.

“I’m guessing now.” I mutter.

“It’s fine that some super powerful wizard sees our house looking like a mess.” Lea grumbles, rolling his eyes. It’s a nice little distraction, I think as I kiss his shoulder, trying to offer up even more of that delicious care we’ve been trying to smother one another in. Lea loops an arm around my waist, keeping me anchored perfectly to his side. Which might be a strategic ploy to keep me from running, I'm really not sure.

“Master Yen Sid!” There’s a series of bows as Donald and Goofy greet the old master, and even between mine and Lea’s disrespectful asses, we too dip low, feeling quite off to not follow suit. When we stand properly, Master Yen Sid nods at the group of us.

“Rueki, Lea, to allow us to gather in your home is a privilege. Not one among us does not offer thanks.” Master Yen Sid tells us. I crack a smile, biting the inside of my cheek to fight off a comment about how it’s hardly a house and more of a crash pad.

“Uh, I mean, thanks for being here.” Lea shrugs. “Sorry, it’s a mess, we were celebrating.” Oh, my poor, precious man. I’ve turned him into the most perfect housewife. 

“And celebrations are in order, indeed. Kairi, Sora, your return is a treasure for the realm of light, and for all of us.” Master Yen Sid tells them. Kairi offers a tiny, sheepish smile, tucking her hair behind her ear. Sora squeezes her shoulder.

“We’re happy to be back. Thank you, all of you, for letting Sora come get me. And thank you, Rueki, for bringing him back.” Kairi looks to me, heart overflowing in just a glance. I smile back at her and shrug.

“It’s part of the job at this point.” I confess. Naminé’s eyes find me, and I see heavy lacing of regret and something else indistinguishable, coating her features. She’s transparent as ever and dips her head low once more to twist her hands. I make a mental note to speak with her later about where she’s placing blame because it has no business on her shoulders, I think I get to be the one to decide that.

“As ever, Rueki, your connection with Sora is invaluable. But that connection lead you into something dangerous this time, from what the King has told me.” Master Yen Sid looks to Mickey, who nods, dutifully.

“Right, I told ya everything Sora, Roxas and Riku could fill me in on.” Mickey replies. “But we still have so many questions.”

“Right, who is the Master of Masters, is he really who he says he is?” Lea asks. “And what the hell is Xigbar doing?”

“And I have sought out answers. To your first point, Lea, I have gathered every scroll and text I have access to, but this Master of Masters is nothing if not elusive. Legends tell of lost masters, the original Keybearers.” Master Yen Sid explains. “And yet, concrete evidence is difficult to come by. Scala ad Caeulm was once a seat of power for Keybearers, but even with its rich knowledge, there are very few non fiction texts that pertain to the age of fairytales, much has been lost to time. The only definitive proof we have of a time where light reigned supreme existing is Scala ad Caelum itself. For it was built upon the ruins of an ancient world known as Daybreak Town.”

It’s as though a gong is being struck inside of me. I clutch one of Lea’s shirt tails, face screwing up. 

“Rueks?” Lea asks, I just shake my head.

“It’s nothing, just sounds familiar.” I confess, dragging my teeth across my shredded lower lip. But my thoughts don’t stop in their tracks the way I want them so desperately to. Instead, I can see in my minds eye, cobble stones, a clock tower, a fountain. My hands itch, and while speculation continues, I detach from Lea, making my way into the kitchen. From a drawer, I pull out a notebook and a pen and immediately start scribbling. My mind and hands work in perfect sync, I don’t even need to calculate the way I would when I draw out transmutation circles. Instead, it’s like that morning in the woods with Lea. My canvas calls me and before I’m even capable of thinking too hard about what I’m doing, a masterpiece is etched out in front of me. The little girl with her chalk would be proud.

But I immediately see fault in my own artwork. I’m fantasizing about Radiant Garden, it’s apparent in the houses I have drawn out, or the town square rather. Really, there’s nothing I’ve sketched out that can’t be likened to coincidence. Even the warm squeeze from within me can be likened to coincidence. I want reassurance, I want to feel relief, of course the very corners of my mind ring with praise. 

But this feels eerily like my dream. Like the dance I shouldn’t be capable of, like the disembodied voice encouraging me, like I’m high on powers I don’t have but don’t particularly mind. I look at my fingertips, half expecting to see translucent strings animating them, but it’s just me, and this is just my uncreative brain imaging a remodel for Radiant Garden. 

“You okay in there, sweetheart?” Lea asks, standing at the edge of the kitchen and living room and I choke. Offering him up the smallest smile, I nod and clutch the notebook to my chest before shuffling back to his side.

As it turns out, I didn’t miss too much of anything, a victim of my own impulses. 

“Then in the meantime, we keep an eye on this Master of Masters.” Aqua suggests. 

“We can’t even be sure he’s who he says he is.” Terra agrees. 

“He knew who we were though.” Sora makes a face, and I think more than that, he’s spent time inside my heart in some way. The reptilian eye, Luxu, the odd sort of prophecy he recited that I don’t want to get near, and yet need to know verbatim. 

“Well hey, everyone knows about you.” Lea shrugs. “I mean, aren’t you always advertising space for rent inside your heart?”

“Haha.” Sora says, dryly. 

“He knew me.” I confess, tightening my hold on my notebook. “He mentioned some sort of prophecy about an alchemist.”

“Do you think maybe he was just trying to mess with you?” Riku asks. I shrug, a very half hearted motion.

“Probably, but I’m also trying to be candid, and all.” I reply m, making a face. Riku understands quickly and nods. “Fact of the matter is that I don’t really think much of this guy. Whoever he is, he couldn’t even summon a weapon, and we don’t know if he made it back into the waking world with us. If he’s in a sleeping realm, he’s hardly our problem.”

“Actually, he is our problem, awake or asleep. Rueki, if he wants to threaten the balance the worlds hang in, it doesn’t matter where he’s at, it’s our job to stop him before he gets as far as Xehanort did.” Aqua insists.

“The last thing we need is another war.” Xion agrees.

“Yeah.” I say, dryly. “But I think we need to also…” Fuck, am I ever going to get trampled on for this. “I think we need to be sure this is a fight we wanna start in the first place. He claimed to be a seeker of light, he says he wields a Keyblade. If he is some ancient master of lore, then why can we not just let bygones be bygones?” 

“What are you talking about?” Del balks. “We don’t know what he wants, we can’t just let him run around, doing whatever, we’ve gotta do some recon.”

“Well fucking obviously, but why is the assumption that this needs to be another fight?” I ask. “Have we literally not dealt with enough of this to try to negotiate?”

Amaya’s eyes fall onto Del as she holds Lucidia close. He just shrugs.

“And look, you’re not wrong there. But you also need to have a game plan if that goes south, if all you have is Plan A, you might as well not even go into things.” Del says, and while normally, I might scoff at him or make a comment about him not understanding, I can’t this time. Negotiations and relations are something a former councilman knows more about than me. Me, the one who knows only bloodshed and elaborate schemes to escape the bullshit. 

“The backup plan is violence. Anyone who threatens peace must be ceased, allowing these men the shadows to scheme in is dangerous.” Isa clears his throat.

“Right.” Terra agrees. “So we find this Master of Masters, interrogate him and have a team to take him out if needed.”

“I don’t see that going well.” Aqua shakes her head. “We have no idea where to begin, Terra, and even if we did--”

“This is going to take a little more finesse.” Riku finishes.

“Yes, exactly.” Aqua nods. “A team is necessary, I agree, but if we don’t have any idea what the Master of Master’s wants, the best we can do is split up and cover some square ground. Maybe Scala ad Caelum, to start. Maybe send out a group to check on the Princesses of Heart, or on other worlds that have since fallen into slumber.”

“What about Xigbar?” Xion asks. “Do we think he has anything to do with the Master of Masters.”

“Unlikely, the Freeshooter is a greedy fool, he ranked so highly in the Organization because of his original ties to Master Xehanort, before the original Organization XIII was formed. The man could barely be bothered to turn in a mission report on time, absolutely everything was a joke to him.” Isa replies, scathingly.

“Right, Braig just wanted the X-Blade.” Ventus agrees.

“But it was formed, maybe he’s after it again.” Kairi suggests. “Sora, can you still summon it?” 

“Um, I think?” Sora cocks his head to the side. With an outstretched arm, he calls the blade to him, and sure enough, the X-Blade appears in his hands. “Hey, I guess so!”

“A weapon of that caliber is not to be used lightly, Sora. So much energy, light and dark, reside in the blade. That sort of power is unstable on the best of days.” Master Yen Sid warns.

“Right, you can’t just be using that for every fight!” Donald chasitises. 

“Okay, I won’t.” Sora replies, agreeably. “I don’t really like fighting with this one, anyway.”

“But if Xigbar’s after that, it can be used for bait.” Mickey suggests. “I don’t like the idea, but Sora, if you could draw him in and some felt comfortable interrogating him--”

“I can.” I say, quickly. 

“This is hardly the time to overestimate your skills.” Isa rolls his eyes.

“I mean, I was gonna be on my knees the entire interrogation.” I seethe. 

“Rueki’s right, Isa. Xigbar seems to think he has some sort of connection to her.” Roxas says, piping to my defense as fast as he can. “He wanted her to fight him in the Keyblade Graveyard, he went after her after the war.”

“He’s the reason I--” I begin and cut myself off.

“Rueks?” Lea asks. I pinch my eyes shut and shake my head. Oh, fuck me. “Rueki, come on.”

“He cast the protection spell that took my memories and sent me to Transmute City. He’s the reason I didn’t get sent to The World That Never Was when I lost my heart.” I blurt, eyes opening. Isa is ashen as he looks at me. Aqua’s eyes are huge. I don’t even want to turn around to look at Lea. “Honestly, I forgot until now, I--”

“Convenient to forget such a privilege passed on to you.” Isa snaps. “Do you consider yourself utterly blessed to be groomed by an underhanded rat of a man since childhood?”

“You can go to hell, he probably thought he was my dad at the time and--”

“Wait, what?” Xion gasps.

“Um, yeah, he and my mom were a thing.” I wave a hand. “But you can shut the fuck up, do you think I personally asked him to place a spell on me?” I snap at Isa.

“You, as per usual, succeed only in missing the point.” Isa snarls.

“Protection spells leave traces, Rueki. Kairi and I wound up fighting on the same side of the last war for a reason. You don’t shield someone without leaving bits of yourself behind.” Aqua explains. 

Somehow, someway, everything has gotten spectacularly worse, and I am at the center of the shit storm once more.

“I literally just fucking asked you, Rueki.” Lea grumbles and I flinch. 

“I forgot, it’s been so long, I’m sorry.” I turn to him, pleading.

“Thanks to Xigbar you didn’t stumble right into Xemnas’ control. What a cause for congratulations, indeed.” Isa shakes his head, voice absolutely tainted with bitterness, with hate. For the microscopic step we made forward, we’ve now fallen several steps back and while I don’t miss Isa’s not so gentle teasing, I am aware that with him, comes distance from Lea. The tables have truly turned, it feels like lifetimes ago, I was standing beside Lea, righteous, taunting Isa for digging his own grave.

I’m six feet under.

“Look, there’s nothing we can do to go back and change what Braig did to Rueki, right?” Terra steps in, and my heart swells with gratitude. Surely, I’m not the only one who remembers that others before me have been the fixation of much older men. “And she’s right, if he wants her, she should be bait. Her and Sora. You can turn things around now.” And Terra, I’m certain, knows how bad I want to. I nod, limply, wringing my hands.

“I don’t disagree. But there needs to be a third. Rueki and Sora both acting as bait might tempt Xigbar, but he isn’t a fool.” Naminé says, after having been silent for so long. She licks her chapped lips, eyes focused on nothing in particular as though she is deep in thought, quite possibly sifting through the plethora of memories at her disposal, attempting to calculate. “Someone needs to be on standby, to make sure everything goes right. Rueki, Sora, I know you both mean the best, but you’re both so tied to those you love, it’s a danger. Xigbar can use that against you, you need someone more level.”

“Isa should go.” Lea mutters, arms tight to his chest. I turn to him then to Isa, who doesn’t look like he outright disagrees, but isn’t in on this plan either. “To keep her focused.”

My immediate reaction is to tell him to drop dead, but I shove a knuckle between my teeth and chomp down to shut myself the fuck up. I don’t get to play defensive, I remind myself, this is my bad, this is my screw up. This is the time where I tuck my tail between my legs.

Roxas, disagrees.

“You’ve been acting like a serious asshole.” Roxas snaps, eyes narrowed. “Do you think she wanted to keep Xigbar alive?”

“I am not having this conversation with you, Roxas.” Lea rolls his eyes.

“So stop bullying her when I’m around!” Roxas counters.

“I’m not… look, this isn’t about you.” Lea shakes his head.

“I care about her, and you’re acting a lot like you don’t.” Roxas pushes himself up off the sofa where he sits with Xion. She makes a move to reach for his arm, but her brushes her aside.

“Roxas, come on, stop.” I shake my head. 

“I can feel what you’re feeling, Rueki, and you’re wrong, you deserve to stand up for yourself!” He insists.

“Stay out of my head and sit down.” I beg.

“No, if you’re not gonna say something, I will!” Roxas shouts.

“I said sit the fuck down!” And like that, he folds in on himself, falling to the sofa with absolutely zero control of his own body. His eyes are huge, pupils tiny pinpricks. I swear I can hear his heart hammering halfway across the room. 

I don’t know who is more utterly appalled by me. But everything in me is screaming to leave. 

“Roxas… I’m so sorry.” I apologize, for what seems like the millionth time today. He doesn’t even know how to respond to me, and with everything I have in me, I snap the empathy link shut, closing off any and everyone from my heart, extending the same courtesy to them in tandem.

“Is that part of your empathy link?” Mickey asks. I want to hide my face in my hands, but settle for closing my hands into fists, only half satisfied as my fingernails press into the cushion of my sleeves.

“It’s strong, and I’ve still got a hold of it, it’s just been so long. I was closed off from Sora, it’s not as easy to control anymore. But I’ll get there, I’m just rusty.” I insist. 

“An empathy link is a sort of ancient magic that even I have very little knowledge of.” Master Yen Sid confesses. “Naminé, you were the one who tethered Rueki in such a way, what say you in regards to the strength of her abilities?”

“I-- I don’t really know. I just connected her to Sora, I didn’t realize what that meant in regards to powers. I’m sorry I can’t be much help, but even I don’t understand much of this.” Naminé shakes her head, unable to meet the eyes of anyone in the room, like it's her fault I'm coming out looking like a monster.

“Look, I didn’t mean to, and it’s not like I do it if I can help it, it was an accident and I’m sorry.” I plead.

“It seems that much of your existence is proving to be an accident.” Isa grumbles.

“Dude, shut up.” I snap. 

“Or what will you do? Choose the wrong enemy, yet again?” Isa rolls his eyes. “Or do you not feel I already have the scars to match yours?” 

“I dunno, but keep it up, and we can add to the collection.” I taunt. 

“Guys, please!” Xion smacks the side of the sofa as she stands. “This isn’t helping anything, Rueki’s sorry, and Isa, you can’t fault her for that. You were terrible to Roxas and I, but we know that’s not you, we forgive you. Rueki isn’t some sort of spy, she’s not on anyone else’s team. Her heart was broken and she made a mistake, you have too. We can’t keep going back to the past. We need to move on and come up with a plan. And Rueki, you can't jump every time someone taunts you, we're your friends, we're all on the same side!”

“And you need to remember to vocalize things.” Amaya reminds me. “Of course we’re going to assume the worst if you keep us in the dark, I know you understand that.”

“I know, and I’m seriously sorry. I forgot. I’m human, I made a mistake. But that’s all. That’s all that happened with Xigbar, I swear.” I insist.

“Because you’ve never used that one before.” Lea remarks, snidely.

“Dude, who do you think this is helping?” Kairi throws her hands up. “She’s your wife, you owe her at least the basic human courtesy of being kind.”

“Because she extends basic human courtesies to me.” Lea shakes his head. “This is ridiculous, I’m gonna go.” 

“You’ve got a Keyblade, Lea. It’s your job to stay and plan with us.” Ventus reminds him. Lea makes a face, rolls his shoulders back and shrugs.

“You’re right. I’ll go. Whatever you guys plan, if I can help, I will. Otherwise, you can but me on the back burner.” I say. I quickly set the notebook I hold down on the coffee table, and as I do, something fills my mind that nearly breaks me.

The seal I created on the empathy link is utterly shattered as too many memories flood. Chirithy, a neon and black Keyblade, a boy with shaggy hair called Brain, who he wanted so much to be like. Creatures in masks, a girl with strawberry blonde hair, stricken, fading. A war he can avoid, so many fallen children, so much blood, decay and death. And then a new life, begun in a castle made of data.

At the center of it all, is a town square with a fountain and a star insignia surrounding it. The very same map I drew.

Ventus shrieks, falling to his knees, clutching his head between his hands. I hit the ground too, unable to catch my breath. There’s so much dark, so much shame, so much death, between Ventus and I, there is no relief. I pound a fist into the floor, whimpering as more and more hammers into my head.

“Take it away!” Ven begs. “I can’t-- Naminé, please!” 

But Naminé doesn’t even know where to start. She stares with huge eyes and parted lips, likely absorbing too much herself, as Aqua, Mickey and Terra race to Ven’s side. Lea crouches down beside me, bringing me to his chest as Kairi and Roxas race to me.

So much manipulation, so much bloodshed, so much hatred, the ache threatens to crush the two of us, stomping and beating at the first trace of light. Whatever this is, it’s decay, something bleak and broken and agonizing.

In my mind's eye, I see Ventus, head cocked, leering at a girl who looks eerily like me. Same green eyes, same full lips, same strawberry blonde hair. Her mouth is open wide, her features struck with pure horror. 

He raises his blade--

“No, I would never, I don’t--” Ven’s shoulders shake as he starts to sob.

“Nam, please!” I beg.

“I can’t.” She whispers. “I’m sorry, I’m trying.”

“What’s going on? What’s the matter?” Sora asks, and I thank Twilight, I thank any powers that be, I thank Joshua that only Ven and I are afflicted with this. Such private, dark, disgusting memories could shatter any others tethered, the way they threaten to shatter me, to shatter us. 

“That’s Daybreak Town, how could you have known what it looked like?” Ven asks, a weeping, hysterical mess. “Rueki, how could you have known?”

“How do you know?” I scream back, my entire body vibrating with the effort it requires to just sit here and take these memories. “Dude, what the hell are you hiding?”

Marluxia asks him something about a sister, Larxene laughs, bright and vibrant as she chases after the same dark, humanoid creatures that attacked Sora and I in Shibuya. My eyes blow wide. Behind me, Lea whirls me around, pressing me into his chest.

“Come on Rueks, stay here with me. Sit tight, baby girl.” He urges, rubbing my back, his tension cast aside as he cradles me. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know where this is coming from.” Ven sobs. 

“It’s your head!” I insist.

“I don’t know!” The boy wails. 

“Here, drink this. Lea, have Rueki take one too.” Aqua says, something rolls across the ground and Lea catches it.

“Can you drink, sweetheart?” He asks, and I think bless him for understanding the level of crippling that my anxiety attacks are. This is a different level of suffocation though. It is my pain, but it isn’t, it’s hard to seperate Ventus’ suffering from my own. 

My sunshine prince is as drowned in darkness as I am. 

“Yeah, I’m good.” I nod, stealing what I’m sure is a Remedy out of Lea’s hand. I knock it back quickly, but still snake my arms around his middle, setting my head on his chest. Between my head and heart I’m so spent, I could pass out now and not even be upset. 

“Ventus, Rueki, are you okay?” Goofy asks. I nod weakly against Lea.

“What happened?” Amaya asks, frantically.

“I don’t know.” Ven barely whispers, audibly as exhausted as I am.

“Old memories resurfaced.” Naminé murmurs. “They were buried beneath years of repression. Your heart was trying to protect itself, but the past inevitably has a way of breaking through. Rueki’s drawing must’ve triggered something.”

“Indeed, it appears almost identical to the few leftover maps of Daybreak Town.” Master Yen Sid agrees. “Though how a premonition of that level came to you, even I am unsure, Rueki.”

My heart twists. Because I think I know, and I think it has very little to do with Ven.

“I think… I think the Master of Masters is inside of me somehow.” I say.

There’s a strangling stillness in the silence that follows. 

“When I dove into my heart, there was some sort of symbol that I didn’t recognize on my station of awakening. There were a lot of strange symbols, most of them alchemical, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, especially since Naminé’s and Sora’s both had a lot of weird shit in them too.” I sigh, carding a hand through my damp hair. “But then I found out that symbol was the weird eye on Xehanort’s Keyblade and the Master of Masters was the original wielder of that Keyblade. Plus, his voice was familiar, like I’m supposed to know it somehow.” 

“You failed to notice a symbol in your heart was tied with Xehanort in some way?” Isa scoffs.

“Yes! In case you missed it, I never went up against him or any of his Keyblade wielding vessels more than once. Vanitas pummeling the shit out of me for forty five seconds was all the time I had to acquaint myself with that weird, creepy eye.” I bark, defensively. 

“As previously stated, it is better that we have this information now, but Rueki, if there are ties that bind you and the Master of Masters, this could be dangerous not just for you, but for the hearts tied to yours. This type of negligence cannot be allowed further.” Master Yen Sid orders. Defeated, I hang my head, biting my lip.

“Yes.” I concede. As desperately as I need this chaos to cease, Master Yen Sid is right. My dream of halting this nightmare of a potential war is not nearly as important as keeping Roxas, Sora, Xion, Ventus and Naminé safe. Perhaps I am exactly as selfish as everyone has accused me of being. “When I heard the voice in my heart, I thought it was just some sort of nonsense, but now, I don’t know. Not when he’s got odd prophecies about alchemists floating around. He said something about a child born of obligation and not love. And then something else about a gift for someone named Luxu.” Because technically I do not know that I am intended as Luxu’s gift. I recall the Master reciting the alchemist prophecy to me and thinking of how it felt much like scraps or fragments, who is to say that the utterings I heard within my own heart aren’t the same? Right now, I don’t think anyone can argue we really are lacking when it comes to helpful information. Even the sudden explosion within Ventus’ mind offers more questions than answers.

“Rueki…” Amaya begins to protest, but I shake my head.

“How was I supposed to know if anything meant something?” I ask. “There was a lot more going on, in case you guys missed it, I don’t even have a Keyblade, I really didn’t expect my heart to be important. Ienzo and I planned to look into things but after the war--” And I don’t say any more, because Kairi goes rigid on the ground beside me and I don’t want her to cry again. I think between the lot of us, there’s already been too much.

“That’s why you’ve gotta tell us stuff, Rueki. When did keeping secrets work for anyone?” Del asks.

“When did it work for me?” Lea continues, though he squeezes my shoulder. My insides ache, my heart seems to throb like an infected tooth.

“I get it, okay. Everything’s out in the open. Here it is. And we still know nothing.” I grumble.

“While our information is limited, this does give us a springboard. We do need recognisance, that is undeniable. And Xigbar must be handled, these unnecessary distractions will only cause further turmoil. Rueki, Isa, Sora, do you feel comfortable calling him out into the open?” Master Yen Sid asks.

“Yeah, definitely.” Sora says, Isa nods too, so I concede and do the same.

“Then we must assemble teams for recognisance and research. Scala ad Caleum surely will contain texts that will be beneficial, with enough time and hands to dig.” Master Yen Sid says. “But, a check should be performed on the worlds, to ensure none have entered sleep like Shibuya. Specifically the worlds that contain Princesses of Heart.”

“Light can sense light. I can help lead the search for princesses.” Kairi volunteers. 

“And I’m happy to lead research. Some of the ancient texts of Scala ad Caelum are written in a strange language, I’m not fluent, but I am functional, I can attempt to translate.” Aqua says.

“I could come with you.” Naminé suggests. “I won’t be much help if the recon team faces danger.”

“And Roxas and I will tag along with you, Kairi. We’ve been to so many worlds with Organization XIII, we’ve got a pretty good lay of the land.” Xion pipes up.

“I wish I could go with you, Kairi.” Sora mumbles, sneaking an arm around her shoulders. Kairi turns approximately the same color as her hair, but smiles all the same.

“It’s fine Sora, I can do this.” She insists, though he still looks quite guilty. “I wouldn’t mind having Donald and Goofy along, if it makes you feel any better. You guys can keep an eye on me for Sora’s sake. You know he worries too much.”

“That’s Sora, alright.” Goofy hyucks.

“Totally helpless without us.” Donald agrees.

“Hey!” Sora protests, but his laughter does seem to feel like sunshine in the room, softening the mood. 

“Well hey, I don’t know any old languages, so let me join too. That way I can keep Rueki and Amaya posted!” Del offers, and I suppose I’m a little surprised that he didn’t volunteer immediately to attach himself to Naminé, but he’s right. He’d be utterly useless on a research mission, he’s not hard wired to sit down and sift through too many tommes.

“I mean, you can’t read either, so that helps.” I shrug.

“You’re a jerk.” Del tells me.

“I’m aware, everyone in the room is aware.” I wave a hand.

“I wanna be on recon, too!” Ven insists, but Aqua, to no one’s surprise, makes a face.

“You’ll be joining us for research.” Aqua says, flatly.

“Come on, I made Master, you can’t keep babying me!” Ven whines, sounding very much like a child indeed. 

“Ven, you had strange memories pop up out of nowhere, do you have any idea what kind of danger that could mean if you run into trouble on recon?” Aqua asks. 

“Besides, you might be able to remember more and help the research team through Scala ad Caelum.” Terra suggests. Aqua mouths a very obvious ‘thank you’ to him, and while Ven looks quite unhappy, he doesn’t protest further. “Where do you want me?” Terra asks, breezily, helpfully.

“You should join us, Terra. You’ve got a lot of good knowledge of worlds that the Organization might not have even bothered with.” Xion suggests. He shrugs a little, but doesn’t seem bothered, though this does cause Ven to look even further ruffled. I’ve got a feeling there will be a hell of a talk between him, Terra and Aqua tonight. 

“You know, I might as well help with research. Half of the books in the library of the Caste That Never Was, were written in code, it’s basically my specialty at this point.” Lea shrugs and oh, how thankful I am. My eyes dart up to his, which are warm but strained, as though he knows exactly what this means to be, but still isn’t hyper pleased with me. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.

“And Riku and I can go to! Ansem the Wise was teaching us the ancient language of Scala ad Caelum! We don’t know it all, but we can sure help!” Mickey volunteers. 

“And I’ll stay home and make sure the house doesn’t catch fire.” Amaya giggles. “Truly though, Aqua, bring home anything you can for me. I can’t leave Lucidia, but I’d like to help in any way I can.” 

“Of course. You and I can look through things together and compare notes.” Aqua smiles and when Amaya lights up, I think of last night and the little hints she dropped. If I wasn’t such an absolute mess myself, I might try to help things along. Who knows if Aqua is even interested, she wasn’t even sure herself, but if she is, something tells me this will end up being a slow burn to rival Sora and Kairi’s. 

“Then it has been settled. Each group is set. Today should be treated as reprieve. Rest, plan, reconnect. And tomorrow, we depart.” Master Yen Sid informs us. I think very much how I wish we could maybe reconvene next month, but I guess that’s the damn problem with Keyblade wielders. 

\--

It’s amusing, to say the least, how a morning can easily take a dive from being a leisurely chat into something exhausting and taxing. And not just for me. Ven protested thoroughly, insisting he’d taken enough naps for one lifetime, but the second the couch cleared, he did indeed crash on it. Naminé swore she would do some further digging, see what she could accomplish in sifting through my potential ties with the Master of Masters, and Ven’s memories from a strange time and place. My hope is minimal. 

Plans were made, discussions began and Lea pressed his lips to my temple and suggested we sneak away to nap.

Which leads us to now, the two of us chest to chest in bed, definitely not napping. Instead, the stony silence has returned and I get nostalgia for a time that things were the other way around and I had to be the one to suck it up and forgive, a far easier role indeed.

“What do I do to make this up to you?” I ask, voice whisper quiet. “All you have to do is say the word.” I assure him, pressing my cheek to his shoulder.

“I know, Rueks. I wish I had an answer for you.” His voice is a lot lower, more gavely, almost hopeless, and I hate it.

“I wasn’t trying to hide things from you, I was just so focused on everything with the war and--”

“You were scared. You don’t need to lie to me, Rueki.” He corrects. I freeze, despite his heat and think of ways I could turn this around and accuse him of being frightened and projecting on me, as though that’s what winning an argument looks like. But he’s right.

“I’m really scared. I don’t know what to do, Lea. I’m not supposed to be the one with strange ties to powerful beings. I’m not supposed to be protected by people that have plans for me. I’m defiant and moody, I’m a wild card, I’m a liability. I’m not supposed to be someone’s ace in the hole. How am I supposed to not wonder if everything I’ve ever done has been predetermined by someone else?” I ask, fisting the fabric of his vest, voice crackling. 

“You don’t believe that.” He shakes his head. “Not you. You don’t really think the future’s so rigid.”

“I don’t know what to think.” I confess. “I don’t feel much like me.” Not with my heart spread open wide, dangling from my sleeve instead of securely in my chest where it belongs.

“Well, you still get pissed at Isa.” He says, running fingers through my hair.

“Cuz he’s an asshole.” I grumble.

“And you still love Kairi more than most other people.” He reminds me. I roll my eyes.

“I see what you’re doing, but Kairi is perfect, I’m legally required to adore her.” I reply.

“Point is, you’re you, Rueks. The things you feel, the crazy shit you do, it’s you, it’s real. Nothing can take that away from you.” He says in a voice like honey. I laugh, a dry, hollow sound.

“Who fed you that bullshit?” I ask.

“You. Asshole.” He teases, kissing the top of my head. “You really think that little of yourself? That everything you are is someone else’s creation? Aren’t you supposed to be into logic and science?” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be pissed at me for being a secretive piece of shit?” I counter, clumsily.

“I’m not fucking happy, Rueki.” He tells me. “But… I’ve also been where you are. I used to have nightmares about you when I first joined the Organization. I didn’t realize it was you, but I remembered your eyes and the way they looked when the Heartless took your heart. And then to see them again and start remembering you and how I failed to protect you? Now that scared the ever living shit out of me. Would you forgive me? Would you still be you? Could you still count on me or would this all be a giant excuse for Xemnas to break you the way he did Isa? You finding your way to the Organization was the best thing that could’ve happened to us, but also the subject of my worst nightmares. I’m not saying you get a free pass, you can’t keep pulling this shit, you’ve been on this end of things, you’ve gotta learn the same thing I did sweetheart, what we have isn’t fragile. You forgave me through so much, you saw past so much, with minimal violence, I might add. If you don’t think I’m gonna do the same for you, you’ve got a lot more to get memorized.”

My hands start to shake and he notices. Lea pulls just a tiny bit away, just enough to look at me and see me with a scrunched up face, unable to meet his eyes.

“Are you crying?” He asks.

“You’re crying, fuck off.” I mutter, though my voice trembles too. He chuckles, kissing my jaw, my neck, my shoulder. “Why are you being so good when I acted like such an untrusting shit?”

“Cuz I know trust has nothing to do with this. I trust you through anything, Rueki. You’re the one, you’re my partner. Fear is a damn shitty motivator.” He says. I laugh, a wet sound, wracked by the sob I have only shoved down into my throat.

“I promise, I’ve told you everything now. No more secrets. Anything else happens and I’ll tell you right away, I swear.” I insist. 

“Well, you should. Cuz I love you and if after all this time, things are changing and you’re playing a bigger role than normal, I wanna be there. I wanna help you figure things out.” He tells me.

“There’s no one more I want on me team.” I promise.

“Good. Cuz I love you a damn lot, sweetheart.” He says.

“I love you too. And if anyone fucking asks, I’ll deny it, but you are the most phenomenal person I know.” And it’s more than that. I hold my breath every second we’re apart, anticipating the next moment we’re together. I don’t want to lose him because I need him and I love him, but I also don’t want to lose him, because I like him a whole damn lot. He’s not just my husband, he’s my partner in crime, he’s my better half, he’s above and beyond any friend I’ve ever had. “Can I…” I drag my teeth across my lower lip, hands moving from his back, down his sides, to the belt loops of his jeans. “Can I show you? The way I love you?”

“I have been thinking about how nice those dark lips would look around my cock.” He hums as I start to unbuckle his jeans, shifting so that he's on his back and I'm sitting above him. 

“It’s a liquid lip, it’s not gonna move.” I smile softly, eyes humming as they flick up to his, soft like the glow of a candle.

“See, you’re you. Practical as hell.” He snickers, lifting his hips for me so that I may pull his jeans and boxer briefs down in one go. “And clever, and brave and fucking gorgeous.” He sighs, kicking his bottoms off into a pool at his ankles. I bite down on my lower lip as I start taking off my own shirt, tugging it over my head before I cast it to the ground, nipples perking immediately at the cool air of the room. Lea’s hands are eager as they reach up, unsatisfied until I lean down into his touch. “And fucking mine.” He breathes, thumbs ghosting against my sensitive skin. My breath hitches as he pinches my nipples and reflexively I tumble forward into his kiss.

His lips are hot as they brush mine. He’s oh so needy, the way he licks my mouth, sucks my lips, rolls his tongue into mine, hot like a wave, filling and perfect. It’s with great effort that I pull away, running my tongue over his bottom lip as I descend down his jaw to his neck. Dipping my head low, my teeth find his earlobe and gently tug. The involuntary grunt that he lets out sends shockwaves up my skin. Fuck, he’s pretty like this. And I’m starving for more. My lips latch onto a spot just behind his ear, and suddenly he’s fisting my hair, moaning a little more wanton for me. So I suck hard, brutal as my mouth works down the curve of his neck, tongue dipping into the hollows of his collar bones.

Lea fumbles for his shirt, movements clumsy and jaunty as his own desperation takes over. I’ve never felt his hands work as fast as he does at the buttons, but the second the skin of his chest is exposed, I’m the desperate one. I push myself up, hair spilling all around us. With gentle, teasing fingertips, I ghost the taut muscle of his chest, nails brushing his nipples. He draws a hiss of a breath, beautiful encouragement as my nails start to press into his delicious abdomen, across lean muscle, across the perfect ‘v’ of his hips. I drag my teeth across my lower lip before leaping down, licking a stripe along each of his hip bones, stopping only when I reach the base of his hardened cock. Wide eyes flick up to where he watches me, molten and with bated breath. I’m so transfixed by the way he burns, I can’t look away as I drag my mouth from the base to the tip of his cock, my tongue tracing around the ridge of his head. 

“Rueki.” He pleads, hips sputtering upward, and hell if I can’t oblige. He’s extraordinary. Gripping the base of his cock, he stands upright and I descend, lips curling over my teeth, eyes still glued to his. 

Dear sweet Twilight, the sigh he emits. 

With my hand and mouth working as one, I dip up and down, delighting in the way his cock disappears into my mouth, in the way that each motion seems to electrify him. There’s so much to devour, I’m a glutton in the extreme, dipping my tongue into the slit of his head, licking at the vein on the underside, pumping him with a tight fist and dripping lips. My saliva acting as a lubricant, my hands moving a mile a minute, my mouth sucking and sweet he starts moaning my name, a chant, a mantra, a plea.

When I cup his balls, hollow out my cheeks and refuse to stop until he hits the back of my throat, he does scream, just for me, hips slamming into my throat. Though tears spring into my eyes at the force, he’s quick, once, twice, a third time and he’s shooting hot ropes of cum straight into my mouth, fisting the sheets, toes curled so tight. I swallow around him as he steadies, and once more he jerks, letting out a soft, broken noise. I wipe my mouth, he’s panting, chest hammering, face flushed.

“My turn.” Lea husks. 

“For what?” I ask hazily, cocking my head to the side. Lea chuckles, a low, throaty sound. Scooping me up by the tops of my arms, he flips me over onto my back. 

“To taste you, beautiful.” The pads of Lea’s fingertips brush the tops of my thighs, across knotted scar tissue, across the healed, hollow cracks in my skin from the dark, humanoid creatures yesterday. There’s not a part of my body he neglects. Even as his hands find their way to the zipper and button of my shorts, his mouth makes up for the lack of touch, warm lips brushing across prickled skin. His tongue dips out, tracing across the ‘x’ scar that Saix and Xigbar created on my thigh. 

“Lea, come on, you don’t need-” I begin when flames ignite on his tongue as he drags it from the middle of my thigh to the inside of me knee. “Fuck!” I slam a fist into the sheets, screwing my eyes up. There’s no sensation quite like this, nothing that frays and heals my nerve endings all in one, quite the same. Protests die and my thoughts become a sting of ‘more, more, more’.

“Wanna repeat that one, baby?” He teases, working my shorts down my legs. I kick them the rest of the way, breath hitched. 

“Fuck me, Lea.” I sigh, pressing my shoulder blades into the bed.

“Better.” He replies. And again, that tongue is darting out of his mouth, tracing the hem of my panties, from one thigh, to where they meet, to another. Across my hips, which spasm, jerking into his mouth. I delight in the way he grins against my skin as he pushes me back down into the mattress. Both hands dance their way up my thighs, fingers crawling and burning against my skin. I don’t know what fascinates me more, the fire upon my flesh or the relief when he hooks his thumbs through the insides of my panties and yanks them down. I lift myself, just a little, helping him work them off of me. There’s nothing that frightens me about his vulnerability, and in light of all of my shame, the molten look of his eyes as they find mine puts my heart to rest. 

Momentarily.

Because as quick as I melt, Lea reanimates me, the tips of his fingers drawing the softest line across the lips of my pussy. With eyes still locked onto mine, he spreads my lips, lowers his head, and with a flat tongue, laps against my clit. My eyes flutter back, body arching into him, begging for more, no hesitation. Lea moans, the noise sending the most wonderful vibrations across my skin, not unlike the tingles I felt, drunk on champagne. Everything inside of me begins to bubble, to boil. 

His tongue flutters, slick and sloppy against me, sparking my insides with each movement. I whine, palms damp as they slide across the sheets, but this does not suffice for Lea. Instead, his hands move, taking mine so that he made guide them into his hair. I’m not upset in the slightest. Silky locks tangle so sweetly between my fingers as I press him forward, savoring not a moment of teasing. Not when I need this affirmation, this love. And he doesn’t take a moment out on me. Instead, he’s all confirmation, sucking my clit into his mouth, eyes on mine, as though even a second he fails to memorize is a lack of success on his end. 

It’s effortless, the way he turns me into a wet, needy mess. He laps, licks, loves and my toes curl. Just a little more, just another shove over the edge. A finger presses into me and the most saccharine orgasm grips me. These pathetic, impure moans tumble from my lips as I buck into his mouth, every muscle in my body perfectly rigid. Lea seals his lips around my clit, rocking from side to side as he guides me down, breezy like a leaf on the wind. With flushed limbs and a hammering heart, I detach from his hair, arms spilling to my sides.

“Baby…” I am breathless, but where I fall short, Lea makes up, arms looping around my waist as his lips find mine. My eyes flutter shut as I drink in the way he taste, the way he smells, the exact pressure of his lips against mine. My hands rake through his hair and come to cup his cheeks just as he pulls away. “You’re damn good at that.”

“You trying to tell me that’s all you want, Rueks?” He teases, nudging my hips apart with the mere bump of his knee. My trembling legs flutter open, still twitching as he presses down, hard and thick, lining himself up just so.

“You know it’s not. Make me scream.” I urge, so immodest, so urgent. He’s not much better, in fact, with rivaling eagerness, the head of his cock pushes into my slit for just long enough to set me on fire before he slams in, sheathing himself completely. “Dammit, Lea!” And I do scream, throwing my head back as my body adjusts. Lea’s fingernails press into the curve of my back, his forehead settles onto my shoulder. There’s an apparent effort to his stillness, to his patience, so I rock my hips, pulling away and sinking back down onto his cock. The sharp inhale that causes his head to snap up and eyes to go wide is all the encouragement I need. I pull back and pound forward, breasts brushing his chest with each movement.One of Lea's hands darts up, greedy and fixated as he gropes at my chest. My nipples roll so perfectly between his thumb and forefinger. Cries spill from my lips and my legs snare around him, begging his attention lower. The spark in Lea’s eyes at my desperation is the most vibrant, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. There’s an obvious tear in what he wants, split between needing the both of us to be met with instant gratification and wanting to tease me, to work me to the edge, just to remind me that he can.

I clench around him and dig my nails into his back and that seems to make his decision for him.

With jerky, wild movements, he snaps into me until he shatters, screaming my name, hands balled into fists behind my back. 

His slick body comes down onto mine as his shaky arms let him down. I circle my arms quickly around his shoulders, pressing tender, gentle kisses to the side of his head.

“You know this was supposed to be about you.” I remind him.

“And I got what I wanted, lucky me.” He teases, squeezing me a little.

“I-- Lea, thank you.” I murmur, trailing a loving hand down his back to rub circles where I previously clawed. 

“We’re gonna get through this, Rueks. It’s you and me against the world. We’ve done this before.” He reminds me, so sure, so solid that I could build a home in his promises. Yes, I think, please. This is what I want more than anything in the world.

“I trust you, my partner.” I murmur back. “But, uh, fun as this was, can we maybe nap now? Ven’s brain mildly broke mine.”

Lea laughs and whirls me around, manhandling me once more to flip the two of us onto our sides. The last thing I need is more of his sweltering heat, especially with my skin sticky and his skin ruddy, but when he pulls my back to his chest, I don’t complain.

“Your powers are growing. With great power comes great need to take a nap.” He agrees. 

Fucking idiot.

My fucking idiot.


	7. Chapter 7

VI.

Lea smooths nonexistent wrinkles in his shirt. I load up any and everything I can into my holster: syringes of elixir, grenades, scraps of map, a marker. There’s a snare like buzz in the air that neither of us have felt in so long.

Not long enough. 

Our eyes meet in the reflection of mirrors and we both laugh, sad little whimpers. 

“I really don't wanna go.” He confesses, finally. I smirk.

“If I suggested running away again, would it count for anything?” I ask.

“One of these days I won’t tell you no.” He assures me, sneaking up behind me, arms twined around me. My mouth twists as I crane my neck back to lean into his chest. “Your hair’s gonna get all in your face.”

“Oh the horror.” I snort. “I like that that’s your concern.” I roll my eyes as he scoops up a brush and drags it through my hair. Laughters spills breezily from my lips, this moment too light for what is in store. Dividing my hair into sections, his fingers work nimbly, braiding my hair into two french braids. It feels extraordinary, I am not immune from the purity of this simple magic. From my shoulders all the way down my back, he drops the remaining strands, turning my braids into some sort of pigtail hybrid that shockingly doesn’t make me look too terribly young.

“Now you don’t even have to look like a drowned rat.” He grins, wrapping his arms around my shoulders after he seals off my last braid. 

“What would I do without you? I ask, cocking my head to the side. “Other than freeze to death?”

“Not a lot of time to warm you up now, sweetheart.” He replies, but he does sneak over to one of the dresser drawers and steals out a familiar yellow garment.

“Always coming back to us.” I laugh.

“Of course.” He replies, coming over to swoop the scarf around my waist. He ties it in a knot and pats my hips, satisfied. Inches apart, the sweetness is palpable but so, so very tentative.

“I want you to come with me today.” I pout. “I don’t like not watching over you.”

“I thought you’d want me on research? You think I wanted to volunteer to bench myself?” He asks.

“I mean yeah, I do, and I’m glad you chose that.” I yield. “I hate not feeling close to you. Yesterday morning was kinda shit. I’m just scared something’s gonna happen and I'm going to run everything. Again. I’m just being dumb.” And catastrophizing, like I apparently love to do.

“You want me to tell Aqua that I’m ditching her?” He asks, head cocked to the side. If I were a proper adult, I’d be mature enough to say that he's smart, he would benefit the research team, that he doesn't meh to change his plans on account of me. But I guess if I’m gonna be a selfish bitch, I should probably try to reap the benefits.

“Yes.” I answer, maybe a little too quick. Fortunately he isn't too bothered and responds by grinning like the biggest idiot of life .

“Your wish is my command, Rueks.” He taps my nose. My again, very mature, response is to smack his ass and book it promptly down to the living room.

When we get downstairs, Kairi’s group is already gone, which I’m not thrilled about. I’ve only just gotten her back, the sheer amount of time we’ve spent together is almost nonexistent, truly, I’d have loved to have her on research too. But she’s right, her strengths lie in the light, she deserves to utilize them. Me benching her after one go is a recipe to send her into martyrdom once more.

Aqua looks up from where she’s ducked down beside Lucidia and Amaya. 

“Good, you’re ready!” Aqua nods. I cast Lea a look and notice he’s rubbing the back of his neck.

“So, scale of one to ten, how much would you hate me if I said I’m ditching you guys to go with Rueki?” He asks, sheepishly. “You know, happy wife, happy life and all.”

“It’s fine.” Aqua beams very pointedly at me, so very readable. There was a time we established that the hells the two of us endured couldn’t and shouldn’t be compared. Still, I know that between the two of us, there is a sort of secondhand excitement whenever the other flourishes. Certainly when I saw Aqua in the Land of Departure, her happiness warmed me. “Whatever we can’t get through today, we can always bring home for all of us to try to search through.”

“If Lea gets to change sides then why don’t I?” Ven complains.

“Because Lea didn’t just have strange memories from his past spring up.” Aqua counters, looking every bit the master. Ven fixes his lips into a pout. I can't help but choke on a laugh.

“Yeah, could you maybe figure out some more details on that? Because some of us are invested.” I say, trying to keep things light. Ven looks at me pathetically, saturated in mopiness.

“I’m sorry you had to see everything. I’m still trying to make sense of it all.” He confesses, and truthfully so am I. The things we saw were so dark, so horrific, I can’t fathom a world where Ven is capable of that sort of evil, or that he’d want to be a part of it.

“It’s okay, until we’ve figured it out, we don’t need to say any more. Who knows the context of everything, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” I suggest, and I hope he understands what I mean to tell him. Until we are certain he killed the girl who looks like me, he shouldn’t have to deal with the worry or the consequences. Surely, Lea, Isa and I couldn’t even begin to pass judgement, even if he did because regardless, I can feel Ven, and that isn't him now. There's no reason to linger on the way this twists his heart in knots, any further. 

“Yeah. Thanks, Rueki.” He smiles, trying very hard to look a little more placated.

“Sure thing, Prince Charming. Let’s figure this out together.” I wink.

“You’re awfully cooperative today.” Amaya teases, I shrug.

“I’m just hoping this gets to be over soon.” I confess.

“Hope isn’t a thing those like us are allowed.” Isa says, voice an ice pick. I’m chilled to my spine and tighten my jaw to repress a shudder. Lea may have forgiven my misgivings, but I know exactly why Isa won’t. Why would he even begin to treat me with kindness when he already blames me for the loss of his missing friend? We thrive on the bitter taste in the back of our throats and now he gets to carry resentment like a torch once more. Why was I granted a childhood away from blackness when that's what his was engulfed in? When that's what Lea's was engulfed in?

It’s not that I agree with him, I’m flustered and pissed that I even need to cooperate with his trash behavior, but I do swallow the thick wad that is my pride. It’s impossible, but I think if anything it’s gotta count for some sort of growth.

“Cool, on that fun note, Aqua, Mickey, Riku, Ven, Nam, see you guys later.” I nod. “The rest of you,” I turn to where Sora and Isa are seated on the couch, since Lea’s arm is still around me. “I’m thinking the Keyblade Graveyard? I mean it’s relatively neutral turf, Xigbar found me there once before, kinda sets a good stage.”

“You really think he’ll go for that?” Sora asks.

“Xigbar is hardly an idiot. But he does relish the idea of a stage.” Isa grumbles.

“So Rueki and Sora take out some monsters, see if the power of the X-Blade is something he searching for? You and me sit on standby, then we ambush?” Lea raises a thin eyebrow as he looks to Isa.

“I think he will suspect as much.” Isa says. “However, at this point, we should be prepared for him to expect nearly anything. It’s safe to assume we’ve lost the element of surprise.”

“But we’ve got strength in numbers.” Sora reminds him.

“It’s not unrealistic to assume he has the same.” Isa counters. “Unfortunately none of us know what Xigbar has been up to this past year, left to his own devices.” Oh, and there it is, a pointed look at me. I shift my weight and cross my arms, as though with the gesture I'm somehow less exposed.

“On my own, I wore him out. When I didn’t even know how to handle my magic and Sora was draining half of my energy. I hit him hard, you saw that firsthand.” I say to Isa. “The four of us just have to act quickly. Xigbar always uses speed as his ally, and leisure is something he benefits from too. The only guaranteed way to get a leg up on him is moving faster.” 

“And if all else fails, hit harder.” Lea says, smirking in Isa’s direction. The blue haired man rolls his eyes, sitting up straighter.

“I’d hardly bank on my powers saving us. I’ve not even experimented with them since being recompleted.” Isa replies.

“I can still summon my Chakrams and control fire.” Lea offers. 

“I hardly think it’s the same as being controlled by the lunar cycle.” Isa challenges.

“Right, and we know that now you’re just a regular werewolf instead of a berserking one, but we’re gonna have to take what we can get.” I set a hand on my hip.

“Your idiocy baffles even I.” Isa mutters.

“I’m aware. Save all of this rage for Xigbar. Just think about how much you hate me and punch.” I suggest.

“A tantalizing offer.” Isa says as he rises. “Are we forgetting that we need an option in case we fail to tempt Xigbar?” 

“Rueki?” Sora cocks his head to the side.

“There’s another option, but I’ve never tried it and it wouldn’t necessarily be good for well… any of us.” I bite my lip. “When Ienzo and I were trying to figure out whose heart went missing inside of Sora’s I suggested diving deep and seeing if I could call Xigbar into my Station of Awakening for interrogation. Ienzo shut it down cuz well, it’s unreliable, it’s unsafe, I could invite something worse in with him and if he’s already imbedded traces of himself in me after casting a protection spell, who knows what flat out inviting him into my heart could do. I don’t even know that I could pull him out with me or the damage that might be done if I have to fight him there. But if all else fails, it might be worth a shot.”

“As far as last resorts, it’s not abysmal. Xigbar does love the idea of desperation.” Isa agrees.

“No.” Lea shakes his head. “Absolutely not. That would completely defeat the purpose of having all of us with you.”

“I could probably follow you, but I haven’t ever walked your heart like you have mine.” Sora scratches the back of his head.

“And you won’t have to, cuz it’s not happening. If we can’t lure Xigbar, we go find the smarmy bastard. He’s probably on the ceiling in Wonderland or something.” Lea waves a hand. My face screws up.

“I think I’d rather risk permanent damage to my heart then put up with him in Wonderland again.” I mutter.

\--

In the wake of the war, the Keyblade Graveyard looks simultaneously more and less ominous than ever before. There’s history here, too many memories tarnished, too many possibilities playing out in my mind, in the way Sora rewrote the past to reawaken Kairi and too much agony of what actually came to pass. 

But without Xehanort and his vessels here to make threats and summon monsters, the place is just dusty and sad, like it's on the verge of crumbling.

It isn’t lost on me that Ven has memories of looking over this place once before, meeting here with four others, one of which is Marluxia.

But I can’t be certain the memories are even Ven’s or what they might mean. We already promised each other not to speculate, at least not until we have concrete proof of the truth.

Sora flicks his wrist, calling the X-Blade to his hands.

No Xigbar.

“Well, it couldn’t just be easy.” Lea mutters.

“Do you think you could get me back to the place you found me passed out?” I ask, eyes narrowed, starting out toward the bleakness.

“Um, maybe?” Lea rubs the back of his neck. “Why, what’s there?”

“Just that it’s where Xigbar found me. Remember, he does like a stage. That’s as good of one as ever.” I offer.

“A hunch is hardly a place to begin.” Isa huffs.

“Okay, well where?” I set a hand on my hip. He offers no response. “Come on.” I say, lacing my fingers through Lea’s. 

He leads us through an absolutely absurd maze of sand and nothingness, I have no idea how he’s distinguishing one spot from the other, but to his credit, he did regularly navigate the blandly decorated Castle That Never Was for over a decade, so I suppose this isn’t too out of his realm of abilities. Every now and then, he has us backtracking, but inevitably, we do wind up exactly where I requested. 

The only defining mark is the sudden stopping of my bootprints in the too still sand and the outline of my broken form. Crouching down, I dust my fingers across the outline of my own body.

“Come on, dick head.” I mutter. “Don’t set me up for another chapter then lock me out.”

“Oh, little Rueki, if you missed me that bad, you should’ve called.”

Behind me, there is an obvious shift in the air. Sora takes a fighting stance, Lea could very possibly incerate, the hate he exudes, and Isa causes even the air to prickle.

But me?

I don’t feel too terribly concerned. He came when I called. It feels like a natural occurrence, if anything. And my ease is possibly the most disturbing part of today.

“You’ve been kind of avoiding me.” I say, still crouched down, though my eyes flick to his.

“Well you’ve had a boring year.” Xigbar cackles. “And I’ve been busy. you know, you've always been a hell of an anomaly, it's what makes you so damn fun. ButI don't even think good old Luxord would have bet on you and blue moon reconciling. Color me surprised.”

“Imagine my surprise when I found you alive here.” I counter, rising. 

“Sure did take your time telling your friends though. You're too damn good to me little Rueki.” He blinks --no, winks -- at me, and not for the first time, I'm irritated and disturbed at how much he reminds me of Axel.

“What have you been up to, Xigbar?” Isa scoffs, behind me.

“As if. You’ve got no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this, all these pieces to line up just so.” Xigbar makes a gesture with his hands, flicking his wrist in a circle. “You really expect me to spoil things before we even get to the climax?” 

“You promised me that things weren’t over.” I remind him. 

“And you haven’t taken a single one of those hints, damn disappointing.” Xigbar chuckles. “And you can wipe the look off your face Axel, I’m not an idiot, I’ve been keeping tabs. Nice little vacation you took her on there. Hope it counted for something.” Behind me, Lea makes a move, but I grab his arm before he can so much as lunge toward the Freeshooter. 

“What the fuck have you been keeping tabs on any of us for?” Lea snaps.

“And what hints are you talking about?” I ask, in a much more level voice, something purposefully careful. As always, between Lea and I, we balance each other, but damn would I like to be the one snapping at Xigbar. 

“Spoilers.” Xigbar smirks.

“Maybe we call it a hint?” I swallowing so dryly as every nerve ending in my body strains to keep me centered.

“Since when are you so agreeable?” Xigbar teases, as though he can see how utterly rigid my muscles are, even at this distance. “Kinda takes the fun out of it, don’t you think?” There's a glint in his visible eye that tells me he's keen for a fight and hell, so am I. I feel the veins popping with tension in my neck, with unresolved action. But if he wants a fight, that's a guarantee I shouldn't fall bait. I'm better than this now, I remind myself.

I mean, at least I hope so.

“Agreeable isn't the word I'd use. We have something you want, you have information we need.” I spit.

“Cute as the equivalent exchange idea is, what do you have that I want?” Xigbar raises an eyebrow, setting a hand to his cocked hip.

“The X-Blade.” Sora says, and to I think everyone's dismay, Xigbar barks out laughing. 

“What a half cocked crock of shit. That’s really all you’ve got?” Xigbar howls, clutching his middle. “Might even be worse than when you two thought you could stage a coup without anyone noticing. As if, Xemnas might’ve been blind, but you hardly need two good eyes to see.” Xigbar points fingers toward Lea and Isa, who look a little astonished and a lot miserable, tandem breath held between the two of them. Between the two of them, a tandem breath is held. I heave a sigh, flicking my wrists so that La Luxure appears in my hands. 

“Remember the whole hit hard, hit fast thing?” I groan, even though I start to uncurl, being sighing in relief. I'm hella out of practice, but this can be the end. No matter what he thinks he's got going for him, he's wrong. There are more of us, poised to kill. 

“You really did miss every single hint, kiddo.” Xigbar sighs. He holds a hand forward, outstretched. Light swirls around him, and in his palm appears something that should never be.

“Are you truly so greedy, you couldn't help but bring yourself to steal the blade off the old man’s corpse?” Isa mutters behind me, voice carrying all the weight of a pin dropping in a silent room. 

“More like, this old thing finally found its way back home.” Xigbar’s lips curl into a twisted little smile, something that makes my blood run cold. Pieces connect, shift together, illuminate. 

“No.” I breathe. Everything lines up, the missing piece is here. It’s been so abundantly clear and he’s right, I’ve missed the mark every single step of the way. The obsession, the way he’s always alluded to having more up his sleeve, the sheer exhaustion he radiated every single time he was candid with me, as though he’s been waiting, watching, speculating for centuries, eons, lifetimes. What he was promised, the goal he’s been working toward.

The blade returning home, the gazing eye inside my heart, the Master’s taunts.

My gift to you--

“Luxu.” My voice comes in a crackling whisper. Something softens in Xigbar’s eye, promises unfulfilled, a million dreams waiting to be answered. 

“It’s been a long time coming, kiddo.” He confesses. “You don’t know how long I wondered if you were even real.”

The Master’s voice nearly sings within my own head

‘The child born of obligation, not love, will be your guiding key. Keep her safe at all costs. Keep her away from the darkness. For if she remembers the shadows that will fall, she will become nothing but a pawn.’

A layer of ice, too thick to cut through coats my insides, the permafrost returns. I’m planted, rooted in my own horror, unsure if I can even move, though I shake from head to toe. All of the fears, all of the concerns that I have been something or someone’s pawn, moved around the board without my own concession cripples me. Is anything my own, is there anything about me that I actually have a scrap of control over?

“What have you done to me?” I choke out, in a voice like gravel. “What do you want with me?” I ask and when he doesn’t answer, I scream. “Tell me!”

The silence that follows crushes me. 

Jolts me into action.

I sprint forward, dust kicking up in my wake. Pulling my claw above my head, I chuck it straight at him.

“Thunder!” The blades crackle as they whiz right at his fucking head. With the mere flick of his wrist, he blocks my attack so easily, as though he can predict my every movement. And maybe he can, maybe I’ve got nothing, maybe every step I take is a step closer to whatever he wants me to be. Maybe I’m not a wild animal, the way Xemnas treated me, but something even more ancient’s pet. The thought makes me sick. Defiance surges through me, I teleport, limbs twined around him, my chest to his back.

“Thundaza.” I bite, popping, cracking, sparking.

“Nullshock.” He’s quicker than me, and the power of my spell does drain me, but unchanneled, it leaves me twice as depleted, not energized, not invigorated, not drunk on power. My grip on him falters, I hit the ground, writhing with phantom pains.

A growl erupts opposite us. Isa teleports, appearing front and center, Claymore pulled back. Xigbar’s fast, but Isa isn’t blinded by rage, not like me. He pulls his sword back and smacks Xigbar away, a blow to the chest than sends the Freeshooter flying across the dirt. Lea’s the perfect tag team. He and Isa function in sync. The very moment Isa strikes, Lea appears exactly where Xigbar lands, cranks his Keyblade back and hurls it, swirling with flames, through the air. For his luck, Xigbar manages to dodge it on the first go, but the ricochet conks him on the shoulder. He staggers, clutching himself, but his eyes never leave me.

With steady legs and perfect grip, Sora looks the epitome of gallant as he swings at Xigbar, blade smashing into the older man’s. For where Xigbar is swift, Sora is strong, and here, sitting in the dirt, I feel every bit of my humanity, my weakness. Speed always yields to strength. A hot hand wraps around the top of my arm, I grab Lea’s wrist as he hoists me up, as jostled and gutted as an old rag doll.

“It makes sense, it makes so much sense. What am I supposed to do, what does he want?” The words are a flood that threaten to drown me. But Lea seizes me, cupping my face in his hands, unsatisfied until our noses touch.

“You’re still you.” He promises, eyes blazing. “And you are going to be his end.”

I want him to be right in the worst of ways.

So I quell my trembling, fish into my pocket and pull the pin out of a grenade. It whizzes through the air, a high little whistle toward where Sora an Xigbar clash. The wide eyed boy leaps back, and Xigbar does manage to knock the grenade away, but not without being blasted in the face by the rubble. 

It’s damn near maddening, how well he’s keeping up with four of us, but the fact of the matter is that I highly doubt Xigbar--or Luxu-- has been stagnant this past year like the rest of us. I don’t even think I’m capable of half of the athletics I previously was but as the smoke clears, I still make an attempt. I ignore the straining in my arms just long enough to cartwheel over and send a kick toward his jaw. He makes a loud, grunting noise, but barely skids back.

“Oh, enough of this.” He snarls, mouth pulled into something far deadlier than I have ever seen on Xigbar’s face. There’s no play, no malice, no amusement. 

In a flash of light, he appears right where our quartet started, above the shape of where I fell. I hate the fact that my muscles are already sore and that my shoulders heave with each breath I take but he seems hardly worse for the wear.

“Is it just me or is he stronger?” Sora asks. 

“It’s not just you, he’s a little too good with that Keyblade.” Lea says.

“Because he’s one of the lost masters. One of the ones Master Yen Sid mentioned.” I huff. 

“What?” Sora literally squeaks. 

“Luxu.” I murmur his name again, and once more, it’s like my heart is being pulled. Very few things are clear anymore, beyond this: if Xigbar is his lost apprentice, the Master of Masters is more than he says he is. A seeker of light, if only it could be so simple.

“Look, there’s tons to tell you, but you’ve gotta respect timing, right?” Xigbar sighs, looking to the gazing eye on his Keyblade. “Waited this long, what’s a little more? Anyway, I didn’t just come at you beck and call, kiddo. You want something, I’ve got something. Little parting gift I’ve been holding onto for a while now.”

He summons something vibrant, something glowing, a dark corridor but not, this portal radiates pure light, it’s nearly blinding. From it, spills some sort of stick like thing. Upon first glance, I barely register that it is human. It is limp, breathing shallow with sallow, almost graying skin. But then, it starts to sit up, a mass of long, jet black hair and glowing golden eyes that peer out from overgrown bangs. With shaky limbs it--she-- starts to sit up, but the effort seems too tremendous. I look to Lea, Isa and Sora, trying to see what this woman might mean, and to who, but not a single spec of emotion, beyond shock registers on anyone’s face.

The woman, the creature in front of us struggles to her feet, gaunt face searching for something, anything. Her eyes are so hollow, sunken in, almost swimming in their sockets. She reaches out a hand, some of her hair spills back, revealing a very bold scar upon her neck. No, not a scar, a brand. Someone has branded an ‘x’ into the side of this girl’s neck, and it horrifies me that this might be Xigbar’s work. She whimpers, the smallest, most broken sound, like a small animal, wounded.

Behind me, there is stirring.

“No.” Lea chokes.

“Rueki.” Isa breathes. I turn around and understand immediately. X. The way Isa’s pupils have grown tiny and his face red.

Subject X, the girl in the lab. It’s been so long, there’s been no trace of her, but there is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that Isa has played her voice, even that broken whimper, in his head, on repeat, since the day she went missing.

“Ahhk.” The girl’s cry is pathetic as she falls to her knees, but before she can fully tumble, Isa teleports forward, his arms acting as her guard. The way he touches her is all shock, perfect awe, as though there is no way this is possible. There’s a moment where his eyes meet mine, my hands tighten around La Luxure.

“Kill him.” Isa orders, feral, venom spat from his lips. I don’t hesitate.

With every bit of hatred I can muster, I lunge, throwing myself toward Xigbar. 

You don’t own me, you’re not my father, you’re not my lover, you’re not my anything. You’re a mistake I need to correct and a bastard of one at that. This life, my weakness, it was your one shot and you had to ruin it by fucking up mine. 

My fingers lock around his hair, and he’s just caught off guard enough where I can slam his face straight down into my knee. 

You’re not calling me, you’re not pulling me, and if you are, I’m not listening. I’ll never invite you into my heart, into my head, into my life. I am not a prophecy and no matter how bad you something, it’s not me, it’s never going to be me.

Blood spills down my leg, his or mine, I don’t know but as he staggers back, roaring proud and defiant, I lock a leg around his, putting him straight into the ground.

Crawl back into the hole you belong in, because I want so badly to break you but need so bad to let you walk away unscatched.

Without the facade of humanity, Xigbar is quick to recover, barely shaken by my move, barely scathed. I can’t breathe but I throw myself forward, leg hurling around, boot slamming into his chest. He snatches me by the ankle, whirls me around and throws me to the ground, my whole body radiating with impact.

Get up, I scream at myself. Get up, because this is the cost of my mistake, this is how Isa and I get a clean slate, this is our absolution. I repeat like a mantra, like a melody that Xigbar means nothing to me, that he isn’t some ancient being I’m connect to, I can’t let him get away with everything he’s done, everyone he’s broken.

He can’t be allowed to take one step forward.

“Nnng!” I wail, flailing my leg forward, using my hands as a springboard. The tip of my boot catches his jaw, and though I’m a squirrely little nothing and he’s some sort of ancient being, this has never stopped me. Knocking the two of us to the ground, I land, straddling his chest, shaking so hard, I can’t land a halfway decent punch. So I flail my arm forward, with every bit of negative energy that my body doesn’t have. Huffing, I try for another punch, but he catches my other wrist, bucks his hips and throws me onto my back.

Bad move, Xigbar, bad fucking move when I’m looking for the hail Mary.

“Firaza.”

The scene is immediately tainted by the smell of his leather gloves scorching. I can tell he’s not prepared for this, like the way he would’ve been for another Thunder spell. He jumps back, patting at his coat, single eye almost frantic. He looks to me, once more and there’s not proper irritation. There’s just awe and amusement, like every time before, like this is a game of cat and mouse he’s delight to be playing with me.

“Fun as this has been, I’d really rather not turn you into the Berserker’s bitch, sound good to you, kiddo?” He asks.

“Fuck you!” I growl, jumping at him, unsatisfied until my hands close around his throat. He grasps the top of my arms, swings around and throws me to the wayside, as though I’m made of air. Yelping, I slam into the earth, head rattling. Through spots and hazy white dots that cloud my vision, I scribble a glyph, smash down a grenade and a scrap of map and push my hand down onto the circle. It glows as I fade, but the result is instantaneous and perfect. The earth beneath us practically stutters, fire and explosives blasting every which way. The eruption has me sighing, sinking down into the rubble atrophied and remedied. 

Cluster bombs are nasty.

The smoke clears and Xigbar is gone, but in his wake those nasty things Sora and I ran into and Shibuya have appeared. I could scream. Instead I asses the scene, take one look at the woman in Isa’s arms and knock back a Hi-Potion. 

“Kid!” I shout. Sora looks up, eyes huge. I search around my pocket, grasp the keys to the Gummi ship and chuck them right at him. “Heads up!”

“Whoa!” He fumbles, freeing a hand to leap and snatch up my keys. He looks them over, eyes quizzical. “Rueki?”

“Get Isa and the girl to my ship, fly low. Lea and I will be ready when you get here.” I promise.

“But, Rueki--” He begins, clearly conflicted about not standing by me, especially here, when it seemed that the only constant we had was each other.

“Sora!” Isa snaps, eyes wild.

“Uh, yeah, right.” Sora nods, blanching.

“She’s not stable.” Isa warns me as he scoops her up, into both arms, her hands falling limply in the air as he does.

“Get back to us quick and I’ll take care of her. Promise, this won’t take us long.” I roll my shoulders back. “Ready partner?” I lift an eyebrow as I look to Lea. The look that overtakes his features is beyond wicked, an assassin once more. 

“Always, sweetheart.” With the wave of hand, he surrounds us and the monsters in a ring of fire.

“Nullblaze.” I raise La Luxure over my head, feeling the wonderful, overwhelming calm that comes with nullifying damage. 

There’s still a gash on my leg, still one on Lea’s arm.

We’re nothing if not vengeful assholes.

With a loud roar, Lea sails forward, in an absolute blaze, moving as though he is part of the flames himself. He’s intoxicating to watch, swaying, warping, twisting so perfectly as he smashes his blade with a charring force.

I leap high into the air, he holds his Key out for me, and though it tears every screaming muscle in my body, I flip through the air, tucking my arms into my chest and then hurling them out, a whirlwind of claws as I come down.

One of the creatures gauges at my face, tearing a strip out of the line of my jaw.

My body wretches, as though I have been afflicted by Poison, and with these strange wounds the creatures inflicted, I may very well be. But any and all Remedies I have on me need to be saved.

This pain is nothing.

With a dashing kick, I sweep one of the monsters off of its humanoid feet, and when it comes sailing down I cry out

“Thunder!” My blades spark as the thing lands on it and disintegrates in a flurry of blackness. 

“Nice!” Lea praises, whipping his Keyblade in a circle, literally knocking the head off of one of the monsters. It bursts in the same darkness and I grin, pushing myself up. 

“You wanna do something really fucked up?” I ask.

“Usually the answer is always, but I don’t think now’s the time, baby doll.” He winks as he smacks his sword into another monster. I snort loudly, climbing to my feet, La Luxure crossed to my chest in an ‘x’. I drag myself in toward Lea, grab his arm and cast a quiet “nullfreeze”. 

“On my count, your strongest fire spell.” I order.

“That’s a hell of a dance, sweetheart.” I hear the smirk in his voice. 

“Then follow my lead.” I reply. “And...three!” I scream “blizzaza” as fire erupts from Lea’s very body, pooling out of him a roaring volcano. I press my shoulder blades into his, twisting just slightly and Lea, to his credit, follows my lead. Magma is his nature, but the utter decay that follows from my frostbite is equally as devastating. We move as one, creating fireworks that will surely tear me apart as they transfix me. The monsters don’t stand a chance.

Our magic fades and we collapse into each other, back to back, shaking knees barely keeping us supported. Around us is blackened, frozen lava, in a perfect circle. It crusts over and reeks of decay, but the monsters are gone.

Lea’s wall of flame fades to ash and I hit the ground, him following behind me. The laugh that escapes my lips is as hysterical as it gets.

“That’s not his.” I whisper. “That was us, that was me, that was my choice.”

“Only you could make such a fucked up decision.” Lea assures me, squeezing my hand, understanding entirely. I snort, but lean back, head pressing to his shoulder. 

“I hate him.” I whisper.

“We’re gonna kill him together. You and me.” He promises and I don’t think sweeter words have been spoken. “I’ll hold, you stab.” Apparently, I’ve been mistaken.

“I love you so much, you twisted, screwed up man.” I laugh.

“Yeah, well you’re a goddamn lunatic.” He teases.

“And a dumpster fire.” I agree.

“Good thing I’m real turned on by hot garbage.” He informs me. 

Above us, is the steady hum of my ship buzzes, a noise I recognize instantly. Sure enough, Sora is low, it wouldn’t take much effort for me to leap into it, but damn if I can move a fucking muscle.

“The cavalry has arrived.” Lea murmurs.

“I can’t jump.” I confess.

“Well, good thing you didn’t eat breakfast.” And with that, he takes my hand and with every bit the gut wrenching force I hate, we teleport up, into the safety of my ship.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as the bearer of bad news, you guys are NOT getting an update next week. Why? Because I'm going to be in Disney World! I'm beyond ecstatic, because this is my honeymoon! That being said, I'll see you guys on Sunday the 26th, which is the Sunday after Re:Mind comes out! Hopefully this means we have tons of excitement and lore to talk about by time I post next.... And hopefully I'm not fucking myself over colossally with putting this out before it launched.
> 
> Enjoy!

VII.

Sora’s knuckles are white and his hands shake visibly, on the wheel of my ship. Lea and I are spent, barely capable of standing and probably in need of some serious training if this is all it takes to break us. Isa keeps trying to prop the woman’s head against the folded down seats in the back of my ship, but every time he pulls away from her, she starts sobbing, reaching for him, begging him not to leave her.

Overall, I’ve had better times on my ship. 

“Uh, Rueki, the coordinates are programed for home, so you can take over whenever you’re ready.” Sora says in a voice, surprisingly timid for him.

“That’s sweet of you kid, but you’re gonna fly and Lea’s gonna be on guns. It’s a shit path and he’s never fired anything on my ship before, you’ll have to walk him through. You break this thing and I’ll break your arm. No pressure.” I say, ducking down beside Isa.

“What?” Sora balks at the same time Lea goes “say that again?”

“Baby, guns.” I tell Lea. “Toss me the first aid kit in the front compartment. Sora, start flying, I’d rather get her somewhere stationary a little faster.”

Cyan eyes flick up to me, for the very first time, thankful. Lea, for his shock, is quick to act and too good for this world. He leaps over where I’m tucked down, hands me over the kit and immediately starts assuring Sora that firepower is his specialty. This sort of unearned confidence prompts Sora into action. Slowly, we start gaining altitude. 

My first impression is that this girl has been fucked up something fierce. She can’t be much older than me, probably close to Isa and Lea’s age, but there’s something gray and almost wraith like about her appearance. Gangly limbs clutch Isa, her ashen face is sunken in, contorted in pure agony. While her body doesn’t appear to be laden with scars, the way Isa and I are, her wrists have been worn down, an obvious indicator of struggling against binds for far too long. And then, there’s the sickening, swollen brand on her neck. It’s healed but everything about me wretches at the sight. Someone stripped this poor girl of her autonomy. Someone marked her body as their own, somehow this brand is singularly worse than every single time Saix beat the ache of his own jealousy into me.

“Xigbar did this.” I don’t know if it’s a question or a statement.

“No.” Isa snarls. “Ansem.”

My stomach could drop out of me. How high and mighty for an old man to lecture me about forgiveness and growth when he treated this girl like cattle.

She wears tattered scraps of clothes, almost scrubs, linen pants and a shirt made uniform, undoubtedly, for the many children in his clutches. But these are far too short on her. Though she is thin in the extremes, there is at least three inches of leg exposed at the end of pants that might have once been too long. Someone has worked hard to keep this girl alive, just barely, for so long. Maybe since Isa and Lea lost her when we were merely children. That person, I fear, is Xigbar. Is Luxu.

I’m going to vomit if I don’t keep myself distracted.

“Does she have any injuries beneath her clothes?” I ask. Isa’s adam's apple bobs in his throat.

“That’s hardly been my concern, she screams when I try to move her.” He says gruffly. Fucking boys. Dipping in low, I gently brush her hair out of her face, fingertips brushing ever so softly against dry skin.

“Hey.” I say, in what I hope is a soothing voice. The woman screams, lurching up with adrenaline fueled strength to wrap her arms around my neck, bones nearly popping through her knuckles. I am not what I used to be, but I do tear her off of me with ease, throwing her back into Isa. She sobs hysterically, curling into him. His eyes burn.

“You’re going to break her.” He roars.

“If I break her bones, I can mend them, I can’t do shit if she strangles me!” I snap back. Fuck this. I grab a Remedy from my holster, dump it into a syringe, and while she nuzzles Isa, I jam the needle into her neck. She shrieks, a witch’s howl as she seizes in his arms.

“Rueki!” He storms.

“Give it a second!” I bite. And though the muscles in his body go visibly rigid, even beneath his long sleeved clothing, he does listen. Perhaps he doesn’t like me, but he knows better than everyone that surviving against the odds is my specialty. Fisting his shirt, she spasms, bones rattling against him until she goes limp, whimpering and weak once more. Fuck, I hate myself for bringing her to this. If she comes out of this, I’ll let her sedate my next panic attack. Tensely, I lean in, touching her arm now, deciding it may be safer than her face. I have no idea the physical or psychological trauma this girl has been through, but I hardly want to add to it. Especially when…

When Isa might be right and this might be my fault.

“Hey, my name’s Rueki. This is Isa, up front is Lea and Sora.” I tell her, sweetly.

“We visited you when we were boys, Lea and I. Your sun and moon.” He tells her. Though she is nearly in a twilight she does seem to stir at this, nodding very softly into Isa’s chest.

“Good. I know you don’t need to trust me, you don’t even need to like me, but I’m going to help you. I need to check some uncomfortable things. But it’s just us girls. I promise I won’t hurt you. You can tell me to stop and I will, okay?” I ask her. She doesn’t respond, so I act with caution, fingers starting up her arms, toward her sleeves, which I slowly pull up. “I want to make sure you don’t have any infections, okay?” Again, she doesn’t respond, so I turn her arm over, seeing once more, the obvious sign that someone has kept her barely alive. There are needle marks in the curve of her arm, likely from some sort hookup, probably not unlike the Elixir I was hooked up to. Probably not as much with her safety in mind, though. Little yellow and green bruises flower the site, as though the vein collapsed and was allowed to heal some time ago. She makes an uncomfortable noise, but doesn’t move completely away from me.

Whether that's conditioning or not is beyond me. And not something I want to think too hard about.

Biting my lip, I turn to the other side. The opposite arm doesn’t seem to be doing much better, the bruises here are blue and black, obviously fresher.

“Probably kept alive on machinery.” I whisper, not looking to Isa, who is stroking her hair and watching the two of us with bated breath. “Okay, this is gonna be the shitty part. So hang in there with me, I’m gonna try to be quick, and I promise, I won’t touch you any way you don’t want me to.” Isa seems disturbed by my words. Tucking his head low, he pinches his eyes shut, pressing his forehead to hers, mumbling something low and deep. It takes me a second to realize he’s singing something softly to her, and now I’m the one bathing in discomfort. Wrinkling my nose, I push her sackcloth of a shirt up, just a little, wondering if skin to skin contact is helpful or hurtful. She jerks, jaw going tight, Isa clutches her a little closer and I work quickly, hands working down her back. Nothing prominent pokes out, the most obvious thing I notice is the malnutrition, but I work up the shirt over her breasts and swallow dryly. Scars like the ones Isa dons, run all across the middle of her chest. Her heart. Quickly, I pull her shirt back down, vowing to keep my mouth shut. Whatever those scars are from, and surely I have my theories, I decide that saying a word to Isa, for the time being, will not be helpful. Not at least until I have words with Ansem and Ienzo myself. Surely, Isa is not above blind displays of rage. He will kill Ansem for this, I have no doubt. 

Though what is on Ansem and what is on Xigbar, I don’t know.

“Good job.” I praise her, trying to keep my voice as close to honey as possible. “I’ve gotta check one more thing, hang in here with me.” I urge, rolling the legs of her pants up. I work one all the way up to her bikini line and start to lift her leg up. Grunting wildly, she kicks me right in the chest, skidding me back. I cry out and Lea yelps.

“You okay, Rueks?” He chokes.

“Fucking ducky.” I snarl. Isa’s eyes meet mine, and through his anxious gratitude, I persevere. Ignoring bruises of my own, I grip the woman’s ankle, raising her leg to look over the back of it. Beyond the shackles creating welts on her ankles though, both legs seem relatively clear. Harder to distinguish, against the pallor of her skin, are soft white scars and calluses on her palms. “Alright, I’m sure you really don’t want to talk to me, but you look like there’s not a lot I can do for you right now except get you some Potions. Can you drink or do you want me to use the syringe again?” I ask, already knowing what I’m sure would be preferable to her. Groaning and creaking, she thrusts out a hand so I set a Potion in hers. Even the effort to uncork it strains her sinewy arms so Isa quickly swoops in and helps her, uncapping it and guiding the vial to her lips. A far cry from how I have ever seen him, he is nothing but patient and caring as he helps her tip her head back, cooing as she swallows. A Potion is hardly a grand effort, but most of this girl’s ailments likely don’t lie on the skin. She needs to be fed, yes. And when we get home, I can mix an Al Bhed Potion and apply it like a salve across her welts if she'll allow me, but if Naminé is able fish into this woman’s mind, I have the feeling she will be the only one who will tell us the level of help this girl needs.

“The consensus?” Isa asks, through gritted teeth.

“Is that I didn’t know you could sing.” I mutter. His jaw snaps shut, eyes absolutely incerating as though I need reminder of the damage he could inflict on me if I were to pass that information on. I roll my eyes, dragging a knee to my chest. “She needs food. Her veins are pretty fucked, I wanna limit the injections as much as possible.”

“Can you eat?” He asks her, grazing a hand over her arm. Goosebumps prickle to life on her skin, the atrophied muscles in her skinny arms going rigid. Weakly, she nods, pressing her forehead into his shoulder.

“Just too much.” She whispers. “Just wanna sleep.” 

An abrupt jerk in the ship knocks me onto my back and has Isa grunting as he tries to stabilize the woman. 

“You fucking trying to crash this thing?” I scream, slamming a hand into the ground as I push myself up.

“These aren’t Heartless ships, Rueki! There’s something wrong!” Sora tries. I mutter something under my breath about having to do everything my fucking self as I stand, leaning over, looking to where Lea and Sora are targeting. To his credit, Sora’s right, the insignias on the ships are very obviously not Heartless. It’s that same strange symbol we saw in Shibuya, likely belonging to the dark creatures we saw there, the same ones Xigbar sent after us in his disappearance.

“Can you keep the shields up?” I ask.

“Um, probably.” Sora nods, mostly firm, but I do hear the wavering. His mind seems to scream thousands of questions, ones I don’t even know the answer to and am trying very plainly to black out. 

“Yes or no, kid?” I ask.

“Yes.” He says quickly, so I lean even further forward, to the screen between Sora and Lea. I tweak a few buttons, opt out of an automatic setting and search into secret weapons. Screwing up my face, I hover over a button.

“Now, Sora. Do not falter.” I order, and with that, I slam my hand down onto the screen. A blue light flashes around the ships, a perfect barrier as vibrant red lasers pour out from all angles. Heaven and Hell. War is unleashed upon the space around us and though the dark ships hammer away at our barrier, Sora hold steady until we vaporize them. Adrenaline shakes all of us, and only in the clear, do I breathe a sigh of relief. 

“Alright!” Sora cheers, beaming hugely. “That was amazing!”

“Damn straight!” Lea nods, bumping fists with mine.

“Yeah, now just don’t get shot, we’ve got shit for defense for probably the next five minutes.” I say. Sora laughs softly but my eyes harden. “I’m serious, one shot and we will crash. None of us can open dark corridors and we’ve got a passenger that needs us.”

“Right.” Sora nods. “We’ll get you home um...what’s your name?” Sora asks, head cocked as he regards the girl. She makes a soft noise, turning further into Isa.

“She doesn’t know. She’s lost her memories.” Isa says, jumping to her defense quickly.

“No.” The woman whispers. “Skuld.” 

The ship seems stuck on some sort of static, unsure of how to move or how to breathe, only the gentle hum of the motors carrying us through space fill the air. Even I seem to have forgotten how to speak. Skuld. Subject X. This girl I once resented, someone I once thought knew no horrors compared to me, has a heart, has a mind, has an identity. No longer is she a phantom, lost to Lea and Isa’s memories. I feel guiltier than ever. If Xigbar could only save one of us, if he was meant to damage the other, then what sets me apart so thoroughly? What difference do she and I have between us? Maybe there’s something, but I just look at her now and compare myself, the orphan girl who lost her memories and think that roles could so very easily have been reversed. 

“So you’ve got it memorized now?” Lea aks, apprehension in his tone. Skuld sighs softly, the smallest trace of a smile touching her lips.

“You sound the same, both of you.” She breathes. “It’s so nice. The only time I’ve felt good since they took me, was with you two.”

“I spent the decade searching for you. When you went missing, I never once ceased, never forgot.” Isa assures urgently, eyes flicking from Skuld’s to mine.

Why am I coming up with dirty hands so often now?

“S’okay.” Skuld says, softly. “This wasn’t on you.”

“It was on Ansem.” Isa agrees. “And Xigbar.”

“Luxu.” Skuld murmurs. My insides feel very much as though someone is wringing them out. I’m going to be sick. Inside my own fucking ship, I’m going to be sick. “I didn’t recognize him when he brought me to and from experiments. It was only after he took me that my memories were put back. Like he’d been keeping them locked away the entire time. He looks different, I had only seen him a few times before, always in a cloak. But he's not lying, I know. ”

Lea and Isa’s eyes fall on me, and I am very much regretting skipping breakfast this morning.

“Sora put the ship into warp.” I urge.

“Is everything okay?” He asks. Sure as hell, I’m not going to announce to this entire crew that guilt and shame are eating away at every single wall I’ve ever created for myself, and now, the rubble is smashing into my fucking stomach, so I just cast him a quick glare, which he doesn’t even notice, his eyes still glued to space.

“You knew that name.” Isa says. Oh fuck, I’m going to cry. Taking a breath that feels too wet, too shaky, I clench my fists, eyes falling away.

“I didn’t know it was him.” I mutter.

“Come on, Isa.” Lea sighs.

“Why did he want her, Rueki?” Isa demands, but I shake my head.

“I don’t know.” I promise.

“He wanted a group of us from the past. To join the crusade.” She says.

“Crusade for what?” Lea asks.

“To restore the worlds, I think. To make things the way they used to be.” Skuld says. “He wasn’t clear, I’m not even sure he knew I was listening. He just kept me there in that pod for so long, for a while, I couldn’t do anything, but then I started to hear, started to feel, so I listened and waited.” Her shoulders start to shake, her hands clench Isa’s arms and he scoops her up, between his legs so that her back is to his chest, completely enveloping her. “I don’t know, I just want to rest, it’s just too much. I--I can’t do this anymore.”

She sobs violently into Isa and the rest of us clamp our jaws shut.

I hate that she voices what I feel into my bones.

I hate even more that no one speaks to me the remainder of the ride.

\--

Getting home involves hustle and hurry, we land the ship and Skuld has drank about three Potions but still struggles to stand upright. I’m thankful when we get through the door and Amaya is the only one that needs pacified.

“Later.” I assure her, as I scoop an arm under Skuld, helping Isa the remainder of the way. Amaya stands in the living room, green eyes huge, Lucidia rocking back and forth in her arms. Her mouth pops open as she watches us, but she nods and tucks herself into the couch, as though this is as insane as life can get. Poor girl.

With a huff, Isa and I lower Skuld into his bed, a room I had only entered during the house tour. It is decorated with moody colors, deep blues, violets, blacks, a medieval castle fit for a reclusive king. Skuld all but sighs as she sinks into the comforter. Her waxen fists grip the sheets, and in the wildest display of personality she’s shown of late, she twists over, from her back to her stomach, cocooning herself in his blankets. A soft moan escapes her lips as she nuzzles his pillow, all the innocence of the childhood she was deprived of spilling out.

“I can stay here?” She asks.

“Sure.” I say. “We’ve got a spare room you can set up in when you feel better.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I don’t want to hear it from you.” 

The weight of the pit in my stomach is all I need to realize that she doesn’t outright trust me. She doesn’t want any more reassurances from her would be doctor. Not when her hero is around. Her hero, my tormentor. Fucking bitch, if she wasn't absolutely shattered, I'd slap her myself. 

What an odd, shifted reality this has become. A hand on my hip, I turn to Isa, who glows, illuminating, waxing for her. As he fights a smile, he sinks into the edge of the bed and squeezes her leg. Skuld doesn’t so much as flinch. Not for the first time, in my own house, I feel like a voyeur. How many times has he fantasized about this moment, I wonder, about seeing this woman’s face, about being content in her safety, about knowing she is finally free of the clutches of any that might lay an unkind hand to her?

Probably as many times as she’s clung to his voice in the back of her mind, the only thing that feels safe.

“Of course.” Isa assures her. “There’s no one that can harm you now.”

“The moon to light my night.” She smiles, eyes fluttering shut as she presses her cheek into the pillow.

“The stars to guide my way.” He says, almost like answering a question. An inside joke, more history and familiarity than I’m comfortable sharing. And it begs the question, what sort of pretty little moments like these does she share with Lea?

“I’m gonna get you some food, what sounds good?” I ask, quickly clearing my throat. Skuld shakes her head.

“Just wanna sleep.” She whines.

“Dude, you’ve gotta eat.” I heave a sigh. 

“I dunno.” She just says, scrunching her face, every bit as unhelpful as, well, me. I guess it’s not anything I’m unused to, and with decades of fight or flight ruling her, I’m sure the last thing she’s concerned about is what fills her plate. Still, if I wanted a child, Lea and I could’ve had one by this point.

“You eat or I’m going to need to hook you up to a feeding tube.” It’s a half assed threat, said in my sweetest voice, with absolutely nothing to back it. I know basic, practical, medical alchemy. I’m not a doctor and I hardly have the means or the knowledge to keep her fed via machines. Still, her golden eyes narrow into slits, a glare softened only by the way her body shakes.

“Soup.” Isa suggests. “Bread, soft fruits.”

“Okay.” Skuld concedes as though anything from his lips is gospel and anything from mine is an inherent threat. Well, fuck me then, I suppose.

I’m not supposed to take this personal, or to want to throat punch someone that needs my help, but I’ve never pretended to be faultless, I hardly intend to start now.

“Two pieces of bread.” I agree. “Then, you can sleep all you want.”

Skuld nods, quite agreeably, but grabs Isa’s arms.

“You’ll stay? You or the sun?” She asks. Like that, jealousy starts scratching out, a demented monster that starts up my insides and pounds at my throat, threatening to rip through me. The sun is mine, I want to tell her. I have poured everything I have into the sun and he into me and she is not the only one who needs a light to shine brightly to cast away the dark. Jealousy is a wretched, possessive thing. I turn around, not waiting for Isa’s answer as I head out the door, into the kitchen.

Amaya is tittering back and forth in the kitchen, Lucidia in the living room, playing blocks with Sora, who surely needs such an innocent act to keep him occupied. 

Lea leans against the counter, a beer cracked open, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Tall person, top shelf.” I say, my voice that cuts through the air razor sharp enough to cause him to pound on the counter top, eyes flying wide, beer very nearly spilling.

“Fuck, Rueki.” He sputters.

“Babe, top shelf, I need the bread.” I repeat impatiently. He grumbles something under his breath, sets the beer on the counter and treads over to the pantry.

“For her?” Amaya asks.

“Yeah, I’m not sure the last time she ate anything real. Maya, can you make some of that salve we used to put on wounds, the one made from Al Bhed Potions?” I ask as Lea hands me down the bread. 

“I think?” She more asks than says.

“Come on, is it yes or fucking no?” I snap, carding a hand through my hair. Amaya freezes, eyes growing wide. Lea raises an eyebrow at me. 

“Hey, Sora, how about you go give Isa the bread?” Lea asks, eyes never leaving me, as though I’m some sort of wild beast, in need of constant supervision. My nerve endings prickle, my jaw tightens.

“I’m capable, Lea.” I remind him, though my tone leaves a lot to be desired.

“Sora?” Amaya persists.

“Yep, sure!” Sora chirps, springing up, Lucidia between his arms. “Cidia wanted to go for a walk anyway.” He nods as he brings her over. Giddily, Lucidia grabs the bread and Sora walks them swiftly to the hall that Isa’s bedroom is down.

As his footsteps disappear, above my head, Amaya and Lea exchange a glance. I could scream.

“Rueki, would you like to talk?” Amaya asks, wringing her hands, biting her lips. I can tell she feels utterly blind, struggling to know where to even begin. Wrinkling my brow, I can't get over how much I hate this, hate feeling like once more my actions are being looked upon with judgement when I am the one keeping this mystery girl alive, when I’m the one who made the effort to tear Xigbar apart.

Luxu. 

I’m suddenly gripping the kitchen sink, spilling the nonexistent contents of my stomach with chills down my spine and bone white knuckles. 

Amaya’s pulling my pigtails and bangs from my face, Lea rubs my back. I’m so damn pissed that I’m shaking, but I can’t stop, my knees clatter together. I don’t know if I want to scream and start knocking things over or if I want to fall to the ground and ball my eyes out, both sound like great and terrible options, but I know I hate the feeling of the people I want so badly to protect, trying to comfort me most of all. Every fiber of who I am rejects the softness of this setting, as though I’m meant for destruction, for atrocity.

‘You’re made for these sorts of things’.

Defiantly, I kick the wood at the cupboard beneath the sink. The last thought on my mind is that it splinters beneath my boot, instead, I tear away from my friend and husband, fisting my hair, eyes screwed shut. I turn from them trying to convince myself to take deep breaths, trying to remind myself that I’m so much better than this, that I’ve grown, that I’m in control of my own panic. But I’ve never felt more helpless in my entire life. Everything inside of me starts to splinter like the wood, willpower shredded, sanity tattered. What the fuck even am I? Is anything mine? Have I been deprived of autonomy my entire life without my noticing? And what does that say for me, that I’m so stupid I can be played, controlled like a puppet without even batting an eye? Fucking idiot, fucking worthless, fucking waste of--

“Rueks, come on.” Lea’s arms circle around my waist, his cheek presses to the top of my head. I want to take him to the ground and pour thousands of volts of electricity into him just so I can prove to myself that I’m still capable of choice, that I do still have power.

But no, I halt. I love Lea, Lea has been nothing shy of heaven to me, everything that is me, that is Rueki loves him and wants him to be alright and would never genuinely want to cause harm to him. As always, he is my touchstone and the longer I stay between his arms, the more myself I feel, the more I come down from the impossible, gravity defying roller coaster I have been thrust onto. 

“He thinks I was made for him, Lea. That’s the gift the Master mentioned inside my heart. He thinks I’m his. He was talking in Transmute City about how he’s been waiting forever for something and he hopes it’s all worth it in the end, he wanted me to kill him, he told me it had to be me, it’s always me and him. What if I’m not even me, what if everything I am is someone else’s creation, what if I don’t get to be, what if no matter how hard I try--” The rambling could go on for days. What if that is why Lea and I are always pushing and pulling each other, because I’m made for someone else? What if that is what the burn mark on my hip insinuates, that we’re defying what is right and natural in the universe? What if Xigbar has been hyper aware and has been grooming me this entire time and I’m just a product of all of his fucked up, repulsive wishes?

I’m not meant for this prophecy, a thousand counter arguments scream in my mind. I’m just one of many alchemists, I’m just some brat from Transmute City, I’m a near mess myself, why would anyone want me, how could anyone choose me for whatever they have planned?

Unless--

“Stop.” Lea pleads, whirling me around so that he can take my face into his hands. He hunches over, curling toward me so that our foreheads touch. “You are so much more than what someone thinks you’re supposed to be, got it memorized?”

“You’re biased.” I shake my head.

“Xemnas wanted you to be his weapon, but you never bowed to him. Xehanort sure didn’t plan for an alchemist in his seven lights and thirteen darknesses thing, but who was the one who finished him off in the end?” He asks, and these are valid points, the part of me that is coherent understands this.

“But this is different, Lea, this is predestined.” I remind him.

“You’re gonna play like you believe in that? Come on, babe this isn’t the first time we’ve dealt with people who aren’t human thinking they’re gods. Xemnas and Xehanort had some damned cool powers and some huge plans too. Got them a whole lot of nothing, we stopped them both.” He insists. “Don’t get me wrong, sweetheart, I think a lot of things in the realm can line up a certain way, and that there are those of us who are tied to each other. But if being part of your world has taught me anything, it’s that we get to choose what those ties mean, that our own will does mean something, no matter what the universe has planned.”

My hands shake as they come to wrap around his. I struggle for breath, but he doesn’t let me go, not for a moment. There is nothing truer in my life than this man, than this fire we have burning. 

“You can’t leave me, okay?” I mutter. “I can’t do this without you.”

“You got me. You were my compass for a long time, now I get to be yours. Got it memorized?” He asks. “Wife?”

My laugh is this breathy, pathetic little noise. I twine my arms around his waist and pull him to my chest.

“Dude, I fucking love you.” I say.

“Love you too, Rueks. You think maybe we can take a breather on nursing Skuld? Isa’s got her for now, and you are about fifteen seconds from losing your damn mind again.” He kisses my cheek. “Besides, Amaya texted Aqua, they’re on their way back, you know she’s a hell of a lot more experienced when it comes to healing magic.” He says, and I suppose I cannot argue with this fact. More to the point, he’s right. This stupid fucking guilt I feel about Skuld, the disconnect I feel about being the one to care for her and still being met with the cold shoulder are all the proof I need that this is going to tax me as much as it will her. I can be backup, certainly, but I’m hardly made to be a caretaker. 

“Sure, sure. Stop trying to act like you’re not just missing me terribly.” I roll my eyes.

“Right, my favorite little drowned rat.” He teases, hands dragging down my neck, to my shoulders. His eyes linger on the carved out line at the curve of my jaw. “What the hell is with these things?”

“Shit, I wish I knew.” I make a face, running a hand over the matching gashes in his arms. Tilting my head, I look to Amaya, who is busying herself, cleaning up after Lucidia, as though she has no idea what else she’s supposed to do. Truth be told, I’ve never involved her at this length. She hardly lacks love or compassion, but this is still foreign territory. How do you even begin to support your friend through this? “Sorry, Maya. It’s a lot, I know.” Her head pops up as I speak and she meets me with the easiest of smiles. 

“Exactly what I asked for though.” She concedes. “Lea updated me… Rueki, if you ever need more reminding that you’re your own person, you can get plenty of that from Del and I.” She promises. I resolve not to tell her that it was because of Xigbar or Luxu or who the fuck ever that I got dropped off in Transmute City in the first place. 

“Right now, it’s just nice having you here.” I say, hoping this ebbs some of her need to aid. She smiles hugely, one arm full of blocks as she comes over to me and ruffles my hair. 

“Well, since I’m here, I’ll tell you to go brush your teeth. Your breath reeks horribly. I’ll make you up something to eat.” She beams.

“Thanks, mom.” I roll my eyes, but do listen dutifully. By time I come back downstairs, Riku and Mickey have heads together and books sprawled out between them, Ven’s got an arm full of scrolls and Aqua is rushing down the hall, toward Isa’s room. Sora has returned to playing with Lucidia and looks to be much more in his own element. 

“Rueki, hi, talk later.” Aqua says hurriedly before disappearing into Isa’s room. My eyes find the others and while I’m a little lost in the first place, I’m thankful that Ven intercepts me.

“Rueki!” His eyes light up. “Um, hey, can I get your help with these?” He asks.

“Uh, yeah, let’s set up in the guest room.” I tell him, scooping scrolls from his arms, thankful that he keeps a quick pace. The door shuts behind us and he turns to me, radiating urgency. My stomach drops at the way his eyes seem to spark. I’m not afraid of Ventus, I know he’s my friend, I know he’s gentle, I know he wouldn’t lay a hand on me, and even if he did, I’m pretty sure I could take him. Well, maybe not anymore, not when he’s been training for the past year and I’ve been sitting on my ass, doing very little more physical activity than morning jogs with Lea and well, fucking Lea in every which direction. 

But the fact of the matter is that I don’t need to worry about him trying to attack me. I’ve never had to worry about sizing Ven up as an enemy and I don’t need to now. 

I really don’t need to.

“Aqua and Mickey think that all of these should be checked out. Do you think you could go over them with me?” He asks, mouth screwing up, eyes wide and vulnerable like a puppy dog. Very much not offensive, very much not cutting. He’s safe. 

“Sure man.” I say, setting the scrolls down on the bed. I settle in, crossing my legs like a pretzel as I start to roll one open. “Are these in a language I’m gonna understand?” I ask.

“Well, that’s the thing.” Ven makes a face, obviously uncomfortable. He sinks down onto the foot of the bed. “I...I think I do understand the ancient language. I don’t know how, but I can read it just like normal.” He confesses. My mouth twists.

“So you think that because you can, that might spill over into me.” I predict. He nods, but shrugs and just looks so sheepish and so uncertain. All I want to do is try to comfort him, but there’s not a whole lot I can do. He’s probably as fucked as me. Him, with his mysterious past, me with these prophecies. 

“It sucks, I thought I knew who I was.” Ven explains.

“Yeah, me too.” I sigh. “Did you...feel any of what I did? With Xigbar?”

“No, I can’t hear you at all. But Lea told all of us not to bring it up. I think he’s worried about you.” He says. I snort, loudly.

“Yeah, well he’s gonna have to join the club.” I wave a hand. “It sucks. It’s hard to trust yourself after everything.”

“Especially if I…” Ven begins. My mouth presses into a frown.

“You wouldn’t be the first person here that’s killed anyone. And certainly not the first in cold blood.” I confess, dragging a knee to my chest. 

“It just feels so wrong. That’s not me. I would never want to...even Vanitas, I didn’t want to kill him.” He shakes his head.

“It’s not who you were, Ven, it’s who you are. And who you are is light, sunshine. Whatever you were then, and whenever then was, is not who you should limit yourself to. Do you know what Lea would be like if he did that? Or Isa even? Hell, Riku too. A lot of us have seen too much dark for one life, that’s the problem playing in the light, right? The shadows come to play too. I mean, do you fault Terra for getting fooled by Xehanort?” I ask. Ven’s eyes go huge.

“What? No, of course not.” He promises.

“So stop getting yourself so fucked up over something that you’re not.” I order, however playfully.

“It’s the not knowing that I hate.” Ven explains. “What was all of that? I feel like I was watching something out of someone else’s life. None of it makes sense.” He shakes his head.

“Yeah, there’s enough of that to go around. Have you figured out any of that? It was like some weird sort of movie? Does any of it seem to come together in your head?” I ask.

“I mean, not really. I was a Keybearer back then, at least that makes the most sense. I remembered Xehanort saying there was another war, before the one he started. It looked like a lot of destruction, so maybe I was part of that.” Ven shrugs.

“It was a lot of destruction.” I agree, leaning into my bent knee. “I don’t like that this is all coming down to the first Keyblade war and ancient times. If it were just you or just me, it wouldn’t bug me, but it just feels too clean. Too many pieces are lining up too perfectly. It’s disturbing.” 

“Yeah. Well hopefully this has some sort of explanation. For you and me.” He says, waving a hand over the scrolls. I unroll one, eyes narrowed as I look over the obscurities and symbols. These are all very clearly handwritten, and sloppy as all hell. Fuck me. 

“Right. Wars and prophecies. What a fun place to start.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll, anyone else play Re:Mind? I'm stuck on Luxord's data battle, he's a dick but like...can we address the fact that they put leopard print pants on Lea? Like I already wasn't the most excited about his outfit, like it's alright, but it wasn't my vision. But then, they add the subtle leopard print deal? With a plaid shirt? Nah. Fucking rude. 
> 
> Anyhow, I'm so excited to be back hanging out with you guys! This chapter got gutted a few times, so I hope it ended up being worth it and you all enjoy it!

VIII.

We read until sandwiches and chips are brought in to us, by a very cautious Amaya. Kairi’s party still isn’t home, she informs us, but I’m hardly surprised. Damn princess needs to sign herself up for the most hellacious, time consuming jobs she possibly can. A few days of her absence wouldn’t actually be surprising, but Amaya’s never done this before. And her anxiety sure does love to feed mine. 

So I wave a hand at her and send her away so that we may pluck through more scrolls.

I can read the strange, ancient language. Not well, it’s like learning a foreign language and not being fully fluent. There are certain words I can’t decipher and need context clues to push through, but push through, I do. 

We read, random nonsense, a lot of bullshit and what is very likely someone’s diary. I have no idea who, someone that just signs things ‘X’, could be, though it is more familiar than I want it to be. People signing ‘X’, people wanting to use me for some sort of bullshit, too many secrets, and Ven’s damn face. It feels far too much like the time I spent in Organization XIII. Lea pops in to check on me, kisses the top of my head and updates me on Skuld. Her appetite is nonexistent, she’s resistant to eating and when he and Isa aren't in the room, she’s an especially feisty little cunt. So at least it’s not just me she’s lashing out against. Nonetheless, between Aqua’s healing magic and Lea and Isa’s encouragement, she at least is starting to resemble a human being, so that’s something. Lea leans over my shoulder, chin on my head as he looks at the scrolls Ven and I have laid out.

“You can read that?” He asks. 

“Ven can, so I can.” I explain, and he doesn’t even question this. Fuck, my life is weird as hell anymore. “It’s just a lot about something called Unions and Union Leaders. I guess there are these groups of Keybearers that are divided into different Unions and they’re basically trying to get more lux or, light, than the others.” I say. “Some sort of competition, I guess.”

“Lux as in what those monsters kept asking us for?” Lea inquires.

“I’m guessing.” I confess. “Any of this ringing a bell?” I ask Ven whose mouth just twists.

“Not really. I feel like it makes sense, like when you’re talking about it, I get it, it’s not surprising. But it still feels like I’m just hearing a story someone else has already told me, like none of this is even mine.” He confesses.

“How much more do you two have to go through?” Lea asks.

“To much.” I heave a sigh.

“Plus whatever else Aqua hasn’t gotten to. Riku and Mickey can barely read any of this, so it’s mostly just her, Rueki and I.” Ven complains.

“Well, sucks that I can’t be much help. Hey, can you project that sort of knowledge into Sora? See if he can help you read through?” Lea suggests. Ven scrunches up his face, scratching his chin.

“Um, I don’t know. I’m not really trying to project into Rueki.” Ven explains. Plus, the last thing I want is for Sora to not be receptive to this language. I honestly don’t need any additional proof that I have no control over my own life and that it's Xigbar who has imprinted this knowledge on me and not Ven.

“Besides, I’m kind of like the medium for everything, I don’t really think Sora knows how to control it like I do.” I remind him.

“Well, when you want a break, Naminé is back too. Who knows Ven, maybe now that you’re refreshing your memory she can help align some pieces.” Lea offers. Immediate horror flashes across Ven’s face. Oh, poor damn kid. He clearly can’t tell if a potentially ugly truth is more horrifying than the unknown, and to be honest, I’m right there with him. 

“Dude, why are you trying to make us slack? Not all of us can play nurse to some comatose girl, we’ve got actual research to do. R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H. Got it memorized?” I tease. Lea pushes me away by the cheek, ruffling the bangs that hang down the side of my face.

“Oh, please, you know she’s not comatose. She’s a mess.” Lea reminds me, as if I need it.

“I know, she tried to choke me.” I roll my eyes. “Thanks for swooping to my rescue, by the way.”

“I was busy manning your guns, which is not easy, by the way.” Lea gripes. “And since when have you been so delicate?” 

“Since my husband decided he wanted to play hero.” I wave a hand.

“Sure, sure, princess.” I do nearly glow at his words. He hasn’t called me that in forever. “You two need more food?”

“Oh, uh, no, we’re good.” Ven shakes his head.

“Well stop chatting and get to it.” Lea winks, offering me another kiss before he heads out. When he does, Ven is smiling hugely, shameless in his voyeurism.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s just… I didn’t get it when we all first met, but you two revolve around each other. It’s just kind of cool.” 

Kind of cool hardly even begins to explain.

We read, we read until we’re bleary eyed, nearly falling asleep on our propped up hands. My back screams from hours worth of being hunched over, even Ventus’ joints pop as he gets up to stretch.

“Any luck?”

I straight up fall out of bed at the sound of the new voice, sweet and breathy as it floats into the room, attached to a spectre of a girl. In all white, with fair hair and only huge blue eyes to offset, I can barely see Naminé. I blink back spots as I push myself upright on the floor, eyes narrowed.

“I’m sorry.” She puts her hands to her mouth, equal parts mortified and amused as my vision starts to come back.

“Sorry, Nam. I think we both kinda forgot real life existed.” Ven confesses, rubbing the back of his head.

“I swear to Twilight, I’m thinking in X’s speech mannerisms.” I groan, pushing the heels of my hands to my temples. 

“X?” She cocks her head to the side, linking her arms behind her back in a way that is very Kairi but still looks a pale imitation, compared to the vibrancy my best friend radiates. 

“We’re reading someone’s journals, no idea who, they just sign their name ‘X’. Must not have wanted anyone to know who they belong to.” Ven explains.

“They’re hella detailed. Lots about the first Keyblade war, and these groups called Unions. A little bit about a group called ‘Foretellers’, but those parts also mention the Master of Masters, so it’s safe to assume they’re one of his apprentices.” I tell her, hardly noticing the way she treads so timidly to the bed, looking over the scrolls. Her fingertips touch parchment so very lightly, and from this angle, I’m upset that I cannot see her face, because her shoulders are utterly rigid. “What’s up, what’s wrong?”

“I was just trying to see if perhaps touching these might allow me to shift through some of Ventus’ memories, but I don’t think I can. I’m sorry.” She says, frowning as she turns back to us. “And you haven’t been able to sort through anything on that front either. That must feel quite difficult.”

“Yeah.” Ven nods. He then proceeds to recant to her what we have already discussed, how his memories feel more like rewatching a movie, not unfamiliar, but not his own creation. I, however am a lot more tuned in to the subtleties of Naminé’s gestures. The tiniest quirk of her brow, the way her hands twist just a little more urgently, the fact that every now and then, her eyes glaze over, as though she is not truly listening, but is rather captured in her own thoughts.

“Nam?” I ask, pushing myself up off the ground. She flinches, always flinches, always like she’s been struck, like she's at the edge of her seat. “Do you know something?” I ask. 

“I’m concerned. With Ventus being split so clean down the middle, his past may be off limits to us, without Vanitas.” Naminé confesses. 

“I wonder if that’s why this doesn’t feel like my past.” Ven mutters. “If this is before we were split, do you think it’s possible that he’s recompleted and has all of my memories?”

“I think it’s very possible. So much of your heart is shrouded to me because it’s one half of a whole. I’m afraid my access is still very limited. I think what you’ve deduced on your own is the best we have, as it stands. You were somehow part of this Keyblade war, you were probably in a Union, you probably collected lux.” She says, and Ven and I exchange an uneasy look. She so rarely probes, I do forget quite frequently that Naminé can fish through thoughts once they become memories, which means…

“Do you think I killed that girl?” He asks, in a very soft, very unsure voice. Naminé’s breath hitches. 

“I couldn’t speculate.” She shakes her head. “But that isn’t you, Ventus. Please, memories can be tricky and traitorous even. Do not put any more stake in them then you already have.” 

“Then what do we have? Some weird prophecy that I can’t seem to find anything about? Fucking Xigbar? And a bunch of shit about a past we’re not supposed to concern ourselves with?” I snap, carding a frustrated hand through my hair. This is absolutely fucking ridiculous, I know there are a thousand other things we need to do, Lea and I need to get back into training, we need to touch base with Kairi, but we also need to figure out where to even begin. Where do we find the Master, I doubt Xigbar will come when I call anymore and even if he does, how can I be sure I’m not playing every bit into his hand?

“The age of fairy tales was so shrouded by stories, by secrets, we could research for weeks and still not have all of the information we need.” Namine insists. 

“But we’d have something.” I remind her.

“You’re concerned about the prophecy. And about Luxu.” I flinch at the way her voice drags over his name, as though it is real, as though that is truly who he is.

“Xigbar.” I say, quickly. The thirsty bastard who wanted a piece of my mom and to cause a little chaos. Not some ancient creature who has waited lifetimes for me, not some all powerful being that I will need to face off against. “And of course I’m concerned. I just want to know the truth. For fucking once, I’m so sick of knowing half truths.”

“You’ve always been so independent, behaving so headstrong and true even without outside information. What is different this time?” She asks.

“This life is too precious to me.” I murmur. “How do I know that I’m me and not just everything the Master of Masters and Xigbar want me to be? I can’t take chances, I can’t lose this. I can’t be their alchemist.”

“You don’t fear that if you knew the truth, your counter productive actions might lead you straight to them?” She asks. “That’s why Axel tried to keep you safe from Xemnas.”

“I’m not who I was then.” Is what I say, simply. “I...I can’t read anymore. I’m gonna have a fucking stroke. I’ll see you in the morning.” I say, patting Ven’s shoulder.

“Rueki, I didn’t mean to disrespect, it’s just… You’ve always made your own choices, even with limited information, you stayed true to what is right in your own heart, even if it didn’t seem an outwardly good choice. You are brave and what you value means everything. I just worry you might lose sight of the things that make you special, the things that make you a hero.” Naminé swoops in, like a bolt of light, a flash of pure white as she stands in front of the door. I just look at her, stupid and speechless and shake my head. 

“You already know what I think about that.” I reply, tucking in around her.

Lea sits in the living room, sprawled across the couch, rubbing his eyes with one hand as he shifts through a novel of his own.

“Babe.” I say and he jumps, book knocking to the floor.

“Whoa!” Mickey yelps. 

“Rueki.” Aqua smiles, looking up from her book. “Are you and Ven making progress?”

“Yeah, but it’s not exactly super helpful information and I feel like my brain is broken. Can we just call it for the night?” I ask, setting a hand to my hip.

“Yes, seriously.” Lea groans, sitting up, stretching long enough that his joints pop.

“I think that would be a good idea.” Mickey agrees. “This’ll all be here for us tomorrow.” 

“We should get some training in, too. We’re all probably a little rusty, and Xigbar was a lot stronger than he used to be.” I confess.

“Held four of us off, no problem.” Lea nods.

“Good idea, some strategizing will keep us sharp.” Aqua agrees.

“Where are Sora and Riku?” I ask.

“On the phone with Kairi, going over notes with her. Her group seems to be doing well, but that’s just it, they haven’t really found anything indicating trouble. The worlds are still and quiet.” Aqua explains.

“But a little too still and a little too quiet.” I predict.

“Exactly.” She nods.

“And I take it Isa’s still with Skuld?” I ask.

“Hasn’t left her side.” Lea confirms.

“Did you…” Aqua begins, mouth contorting. “Did you notice the marks on her chest?”

“Looked like electric shock.” I nod. “I… I know Ansem was trying to do experiments on the heart, but do you think maybe he went a little too far, trying jolt her heart into remembering?”

Lea’s face drains of any and all color. Mickey’s eyes are huge and horrified. Aqua looks away. 

“He spoke so much about repenting. I didn’t realize then who he was before. But yes, I theorized the same thing when I saw the wounds. I didn’t mention a word to Isa.” Aqua shakes her head.

“I don’t think anyone should unless they want Ansem flat out killed. He hears about that, and I don’t think anyone’s stopping him.” I say.

Lea doesn’t offer a single word, instead, he looks like he very well has been shocked, so I stride forward and set a hand on his. He looks up, eyes flicking to me.

“Rueks…” He starts. “Should I have...it really is my fucking fault. I should’ve just listened to Isa, I should have helped him sneak into tunnels, I shouldn’t have waited.” And I shouldn’t have been born to a mother Xigbar was having an affair with, I shouldn’t have been the one protected and kept alive while, having no memories while he drugged some girl afflicted with the same issue.

“Stop.” I order. “Come on, it’s been an exhausting day. We’re going to bed and in the morning, we’re all gonna beat the shit out of each other to keep our minds off of this.” 

So I lace my fingers through his and give him a little tug. He's reluctant in his movements, but he touches my shoulders, my arms, my waist and neck with his free hand, so jittery. Fingertips dance across the curve of my spine, and by the time I've got the door shut, he's got my hips in his hands and my back pressed to the door. His lips don't touch mine, instead he presses his forehead to mine and just grips me with enough force to bruise. By the second, he squeezes tighter, tighter--

“Lea!” I protest, stealing his hands into mine. Still, his hands threaten to crush. 

“You can't fall to Xigbar, Rueki.” He murmurs, voice both shaken and certain. “Whatever he wants you for, whatever he has planned, you can't give him an inch.”

“I'm not going to, I'm not stupid.” I quip, ruffling immediately. I just had this fucking conversation with Naminé, I’ve had a hell of a day, this is the last thing I’m trying to do right now.

“No, you’ve gotta listen, okay? Because what he did to her, the way he kept her alive, he’s a fucked up piece of garbage, he wanted her for some sort of crusade but he's obsessed with you. Can you imagine the way he’d break you? Do you know what it would do to me, how it would kill me if that ever happened to you?” He asks, pinching his eyes shut with such tightness as though he is fighting off a migraine.

“Yes, I know. And I won’t. I’m going to kill him, Lea. I’m going to pick his fucking brain, so we can figure out how to defeat the Master of Masters, and then, I’m going to kill him.” I promise.

“Stop.” He shakes his head, still pressed so close to mine. “You can't pick anything, I don't want you around him at all. I know what you’re doing and I know you really think you mean it. But Rueks, there’s always something about him that holds you back. Even the way you were with him today. I’ve seen you hit harder, I’ve seen you mean it.”

“I did mean it and I hit as hard as I damn well could, Lea, I went a year fighting no one, I shouldn’t have to defend myself to you!” I snap.

“Then why didn’t you snap at him right away? Why were you so damn cordial?” He asks.

“I tried to fucking kill him, Lea!” I scream.

“You fucking didn’t. Just like you didn’t kill him during the war, you electrocuted him and didn’t finish the job, you fought him a couple times and you just can’t manage to pull the trigger.” He accuses. 

“Dude, get fucked. My failures aren’t like somehow connected to me having some sort of thing with Xigbar. I’m sorry the whole ‘I kissed Xigbar’ thing fucked you up so bad that it’s screwing up your brain right now, but--”

“No.” He cuts me off. “It’s not that, it’s never been that. You’re different. It’s like you bow down and submit when he’s around and I keep telling myself that it’s not happening, but there’s something about him and there’s something about you, and it’s like you just can’t be hostile around him.”

“Is it a bad thing that I'm less of an animal? I don't know how many times I need to tell you that I made a mistake for you to believe me.” I remind him, making a move to shove him off of me. But he doesn’t budge, he’s all dead weight and a hell of a bastard, handsy as can be, despite this blatant tension. 

“If it was across the board it wouldn’t be a bad thing but you still look at Isa like he’s more your enemy than fucking Xigbar!” Lea swears. “Why do you think I couldn’t say anything about you being a Nobody, Rueks? I know you. I know what happens when you get emotional about things. You try to swat everything and everyone away, but you’re not everything, Rueki. You can’t be everywhere. You’re gonna make all these efforts to counter him and it’s going to lead you straight to where he wants and I can’t watch that happen.” My eyes go wide.

“Get the fuck off of me.” I demand.

“I just need you to promise you won’t crumble.” He pleads.

“And I did, get the fuck off of me.” I order, shoving. He presses his lips onto mine, utterly in need, begging reassurance. 

I tear away, shaking my head buzzing with electric current. Lea jolts, ripping back finally at the shock. I twist the door knob and stomp, but Lea grabs at my wrist.

“Hey, what the fuck, Rueki, don’t go.” He’s clearly thrown back, so convinced that he’s just keeping me in line, that he’s helping me, that what he’s doing is somehow good or productive. 

“Stop fucking talking to me.” I snarl, fists tight as I rip away from him.

“What are you doing?” He asks, voice softening just a bit, like that makes a difference, like that’s helpful. Like it's not a little too late. Like his actions don't have consequences. 

“I can’t look at you right now.” I hiss, through gritted teeth. “If you don't forgive me, have the fucking decency to say it to my face.”

“You act like you have something to hide.” He accuses and I bark out a laugh.

“Keep painting me as the villain, Lea, when I’m trying to help. I don’t know what curled up your ass and died, but just cuz you feel guilty about getting fucking ice cream with me when you could’ve been searching for Skuld doesn’t give you permission to punish your damn wife.” 

He doesn’t say another word to me and I don’t even give him the chance. Instead, I pinch my eyes shut, ignore the gut jolting sensation and find myself in the spare room Ven and I had set up in. He’s gone by now, and it’s just me and too many scrolls and an ice cold bed. I shut the door and lock it quickly before climbing into said bed, pillow clutched to my chest. I hold it stationary for just a second, picking at frayed seams, toying with imperfections.

And then I chuck the damn thing across the room.

He really doesn’t trust me.

I thought he was just so good, so loving, so understanding, and while he may be, it is entirely conditional. As long as Xigbar’s not around, as long as Isa isn’t in his head, as long as he hasn’t found another fucking lost cause to mope over, because clearly Isa was right and that is all Lea is capable of fixating on. If everything, even the stars line up just so, I get to be held, and loved and tended to.

I’m so angry I could sob, could go blind, could wreck this entire room and not even think twice. But this sort of energy could have purpose, my wrath can have fuel, can have meaning.

High on my own insecurities, I run through the night on manic energy, tearing through scrolls, finding only empty words and the occasional mention of a Sigil, capital ‘S’. It means nothing to me, so there I find myself fists bone tight as they snare around a scroll, me lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling.

He doesn’t trust me. He’s not coming to find me. He must, on some level, want me to sit here and revel in exactly how bad I’m supposed to feel for a failure that he has put meaning to. I don’t know how much longer we’re supposed to do this dance, but every time I think things are finally nailed in and between the two of us, there is finally trust, he reminds me of every crack in our foundation. I want so bad for him to see that I am capable, that I’m no some sort of weak thing, led blindly at the first trace of a clue. I am capable and I am someone that he once did want to work alongside. Someone he once would have been happy to have at his side.

Something has been very wrong since I came home from Shibuya. Something has been so different and all I want is to remind him who I am. Not who someone else plans for me to be, not who he’s worried I’ll become. But the person who tore through libraries with him, the person who fought Roxas with him. The person who endured every bit of brutal interrogation and kept their damn mouth shut for him. I am not something so fragile. Kairi’s death pierced me, but it doesn’t mean that I’m now this damsel because he wants to play at hero.

I could dive in, close my eyes and call Xigbar to my heart and demand answers. Resurface and share them with Lea, come out victorious, allow him to breathe his sigh of relief, remind him that I am not the wreck I surrounded myself with this past year.

But I visualize the look of absolute disdain in his eyes when I utter Xigbar’s name, and know that Lea is right about one thing. I cannot acquire anything from Xigbar. I don’t even know that I can fathom looking at the man right now, if I’m being honest. I think the gut sinking sensation that I am not my own person will break me in two, and I want nothing less than to wake up screaming. Again.

And I can’t have Lea’s eyes gaze upon me like that, again. Not when I was so lost without him this past year, not when I built the remnants of my life, in the wake of Kairi’s death, around him. Not when my heart healed with him at the core and I still recall the absolute pangs that pounded at my insides in the months I spent searching for him. I don’t know that I can do this without him, I don’t know that I can let him down, I just want him to love me as wholly as he used to, I just want him to come find me and apologize and tell me that he trusts me. I just don’t want to fight with him, not when my entire coping process is centered around the way I feel in his arms. 

Stupid tears start up, spots appear in my vision as breath becomes shallow and ragged. I don’t want to do this, I can’t downward spiral, I can’t stumble face first into a panic attack. What’s that going to show anyone? That I am as pathetic is they all must be starting to worry I am. Naminé, Lea.

There’s no one on their way to save me.

And it is with that thought, puncturing every throbbing of my heart in my temples, every breath from my lungs, every flutter of my pulse that I spring out of bed, legs jittery, shaking with every step I take toward the couch, where Ventus sleeps. Terra is utterly dead to the world on the opposite couch, and Sora and Del seem pretty out on the floor, but I still don’t take chances.

Just because Del is impossible to wake doesn’t mean the others are. 

I tug Ven’s shoulder gently, his eyes flutter open and I quickly put a finger to my lip. He nods, but cocks his head to the side, thoroughly confused. I make a gesture for him to follow me and with careful, sneaky movements, we find our way back to the room I’ve spent the past several hours cooped up in.

“How bad do you wanna learn about your past?” I ask.

“Huh?” He blinks, still half asleep, rubbing his bleary, tired eyes. I think I’ve thoroughly forgotten what it feels like to need normal sleep, and it’s both a good and a bad thing. 

“Do you want to explore Scala ad Caelum?” I ask.

“We already did, Aqua said--” Abruptly, Ven seems to wake, seems to understand the difference between going on a recon mission with Aqua versus going on one with me. He stands a little taller, his eyes get a little more determined. “Did you find something else?” 

“No, but you’ve got a past you need to sort out and I--” I might belong to someone without knowing or wanting to. “I think if there’s anything there that matters, I’ll be able to sense it. Aqua’s damn smart, but I’m not good for much if I can’t use this weird ESP shit for something.”

“Okay, yeah.” He agrees. “Rueki… what if we find something terrible?” He asks.

I hate to tell him that something terrible is exactly what I’m preparing myself for.


	10. Chapter 10

IX.

In a different light, Scala ad Caelum is beautiful. Without Kairi hanging in the balance, even the ruins of this cable town on the sea are appealing. Ivory rubble, the humming of waves lapping at the shore even the sigils carved into the intricate architecture of this place leave no doubt in my mind.

“This town was made by alchemists.” I breathe, immediately rushing over to the side of a building. It’s a smaller, quainter structure by comparison, but in engravings upon the window frames, I do, undoubtedly see glyphs, old and very rudimentary ones. My mouth twists. “Odd.”

“I think it was actually meant for Keyblade Masters.” Ven correcs, one hand in his pocket, the other wrapped around his backhanded Keyblade. I do recall someone else mentioning that at one point this had been a sort of council world for Keyblade Masters, and perhaps this glyph is purely coincidental, but still, how odd.

“You guys just went to a library?” I ask.

“Yeah, in that same place Sora fought Xehanort in. It wasn’t just a cathedral or anything, it was their home. It was a school and barracks and…” Ven licks his lips, nose wrinkling as he seems to struggle with something I caught Sora struggling with not long ago. Even his enemies are human, beneath it all. “I only remember a little about him training me. He was strict, but he acted like I was the best, like there was no distance he couldn’t push me to. Rueki, what if Xehanort knew?”

“What if he did?” I ask. “You time traveled, which is weird as shit, but it’s not like Xehanort didn’t. You were part of some little Keyblade kid club that liked light. Pretty much the same thing you’re doing now.”

“I guess so.” He concedes, though his shoulders are slumped as he shrugs. I can’t say that I don’t get it, but I’m so far removed from that feeling of defeat that overcame me when I was so very young and tried and failed endlessly to recall my past. 

“You can’t cram the pieces together kid. It’ll fit if it fits. Trust me, it’s a lot easier to just not care about that kind of stuff.” I wave a hand. 

“But you care. Or we wouldn’t be here.” He reminds me, and I suppose he isn’t wrong. But there’s a lot more to it than care and not. Of course I want to know, I want everything knowledge can offer me, more to the point, however, I want freedom from this. I want to know this prophecy so I can watch a man who holds me to such impossible standards as I defy it, I want to know what I’m expected to be so that I can rise above, so I can ride the power that he thinks I have like a wave, ride it and dominate it and see that my friends never crumple under the weight of wicked men with twisted schemes again. 

Right now, I just want to see Lea’s face as I return home, high on victory. Victory of what, I don’t know. A nugget of information, maybe, the key to Ven’s past, possibly. We can’t come back empty handed. 

“Speaking of here, where do we even start?” I ask, setting a hand on my hip. This place is set up almost like a riddle, with cables and cars upon them that no longer move, an impossible expanse of sea that I have no idea how to traverse to get to the smaller islands, and then there’s that tower, which will be a project exploring in and of itself. 

“All I really know is the library.” Ven sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. It’s not much of lead, but I tell him to lead me there and nearly groan in absolute, unbridled misery at the sheer expanse in front of us. 

We’re going to get nowhere very fast, I’m surprised that Aqua’s group was able to gather texts as fast as they did, with how much is here. In fact, the missing scrolls barely make a dent on the overflowing desk, the missing books are almost nonexistent. I sigh loudly, card a hand through my hair and walk over to the nearest shelf. I didn’t bring my phone, I didn’t even check to see if Ven brought his, and to be honest, I don’t particularly want us to be found or interrogated until we’ve made some sort of real progress. But I also counted on us being able to knock this out in maybe a day or two, tops.

Yeah right, is what I think now. It'll take us a wek to get through the library, if we're lucky. I scoop armfuls of books up and toss them to the floor, immediately sinking down to them. Ven looks at me with wide eyes and I shrug.

“Who else is using the place?” I ask.

“Huh, that’s true.” He agrees, scratching his chin before mirroring my actions, grabbing armfuls and sinking down beside me. “So stuff about Unions and the Master of Masters, do you think?”

“Probably not a bad place to begin.” I nod. And so we search. We searching through massive armfuls, through each others piles, through impossible amounts of scrolls.

We search until our eyes swim, until I am folded in on myself, elbows resting on my knees, head in my hands.

“Fuck this.” I mutter. “We’re gonna die before we figure this out.” 

“Aqua’s been calling me like crazy.” Ven makes a face, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “She’s gonna be so mad when we get back home.” And I’m sure she will, I doubt Lea will be happy with me on any level. We’ve been gone for hours, I’m sure the others are up, agitated and moments from coming and searching for us . I’m nowhere near where I want to be with progress and I don’t even need to hear Lea’s voice to imagine the disappointment in it. This is how you fall, Rueki, he’ll accuse, this is how I fail him. I’m so frustrated, I could pull fistfuls of my own hair out, I could destroy this fucking room. Instead, I stand and kick at a pile of books.

“Come on, there’s gotta be fucking something!” I snap, pounding a fist into one of the bookshelves, causing too many books to rain down on me. One smacks me in the shoulder and I grunt, brushing myself off. “I hate this. I should just call Xigbar to my heart and sort this shit out, it’s not like he even wants to hurt me, what’s the worst thing that could actually happen?” I don’t need the stupid look Ventus is giving me to understand what the worst thing that could actually happen is. “Lea just gave me a fucking lecture, like I’m some sort of damn leper becase of this prophecy bullshit, if we can’t find anything, I’m not coming home.” The sheer level of dramatics I’m spewing is a lot, even by my standards. But Vetus is a good sport, climbing to his feet, books tumbling down in the circle he sat in as he steps over them to another shelf. 

“There’s just a lot here, and most of it looks pretty important but then actually isn’t, like all the stuff about summoning a Keyblade, it’s cool, but it’s not gonna help us.” He says, brow knitting together. “And then there’s some dumb stuff that really isn’t going to help us, why would anyone even want a ratty old book of fairy tales?”

The words leave his mouth and I freeze; underneath my skin starts buzzing, whizzing with the most delightful anticipation.

“Ventus bring me that book.” I breathe.

“The Keyblade book?” He asks.

“The ratty old book of fairy tales.” I order. He looks at me like I have mildly lost my mind, but is a damn good listener, or maybe just doesn’t want to piss me off when I’m in a state as it is. Quickly, he withdraws the book and nervously hands it to me, chewing the chapped skin of his lower lip. The weight of the book in my hands is haunting, I tear the cover open.

‘May your heart be your guiding key’.

Cid never did throw it away, but still, it ended up here. Maybe this is exactly where it’s supposed to be, maybe not. If this was given to me immediately after having a protection spell cast on me, maybe there were supposed to be traces left behind in this, traces that should’ve followed me to Transmute City. I flip a few more pages, searching for more hidden notes like this, scribbled messages that my young mind missed or didn’t understand, but I find none. Instead, what I find are glyphs, transmutation circles drawn out at the front of each new story.

‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’

‘Cinderella’

‘Sleeping Beauty’

Different sigils surround the names and it isn’t lost on me that these stories are modeled after last Princesses of Heart. My stomach twists as I search for anything on Kairi, mind immediately leaping toward the worst, but when nothing is told about a princess orphaned on an Island, made to wield a Keyblade, I breathe easy. Fine, these are coincidences, I tell myself. I’ve become too mystical in my thought patterns, perhaps these are tropes, perhaps princess stories have a tendency to repeat themselves, I have no need to work myself up over something so unimportant. 

What is important, is that the sigil over ‘Beauty And The Beast’ is the same sigil I saw in town, on the building Ventus and I passed. My mouth curls into a pout as I flip back to the very first story, taking note of the insignia on ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’. My eyes scan the room and my stomach quickly twists.

“Oh, hell.” I whisper, taking a careful step toward a spinning decoration at the furthest edge of the library. The decor is old, rusted, creaking and jerky as it clanks into place, but it does, and then it shifts again, ticking with the same pulse as hands on a clock. Once more it falls into place and slips away. No wonder no one’s noticed before. I stand, right in front of the decoration, Ventus’ very confused gaze literally radiating off of him, I don’t even need an empathy link to understand he’s flustered. I am too. There’s no way this is going to work, this is ridiculous. I set the book down on the ground, wait for the decoration to twitch back into place, and then I set my hands on either side of the widest edge of the circle. Abruptly, the thing stops. There’s no other reaction and I’m convinced that whatever I thought I had planned is an obvious failure. It’s such an impossible prospect, there’s no way this minute detail has been so well constructed that--

The circle begins to glow. My eyes blow out.

“Ven, step back.” I say, in a very level voice.

“What? Why?” He asks. “Rueki, what’s happening?”

“I wish I could tell you.” Because I’ve seen circles like these before. Seen them, but never used anything like this, anything made for physical transformation. Beneath us the marble floor straight up rumbles. I leap back, Ven catches my shoulder, hand wrapping tight enough to bruise. “Shit.” I whisper as the walls rattle and books spill down like an avalanche. My eyes go huge, I tear away from Ven and leap toward the book of fairy tales. I get as far as scooping it up before the entire room starts to glow, emanating from a golden line in the white marble floor. It shoots, beaming and radiant as a gemstone, like an arrow through the door,, the line whips and blinks rapidly. My eyes meet Ven’s, he looks equal parts horrified and excited, which I think about sums it up.

“Let’s go!” He suggests, which has me smiling hugely, despite having no idea what we’re venturing into. There’s something about Ven, the way he truly feels non threatening, despite the odd flashbacks, that makes this feel like heroes work and I am all too eager to indulge. I delight in the feeling of glory as we fling open the doors, taking off sprinting down hall after hall, up the stairs to the tower Sora fought Xehanort in. The circle engraved in the floor glitters for me too, so I crouch down at the edge of the stairs, Ventus behind me and press my hands to the floor. Light swirls around me, around us, through my hair, through the scarf around my waist, through Ven’s jacket. He grabs at my arms again as pure energy whips through us and I think I very well could get high off of this.

As the room starts to come alive, the floor drops out, tile after tile shattering. In fact, it seems as though the tower itself is quite unstable, but as each tile falls away, light pierces from beneath. I lift an eyebrow, Ven’s face contorts.

“It’s coming from in the ground.” He mutters, scowling, a look that seems so foreign on his face.

“Any luck on remembering anything that might not lead us into the earth?” I ask. 

“I wish.” Ven sighs.

“Fuck me.” I grumble, but take off sprinting, trying not to think too hard as I cannonball into the light. Knees curled to my chest, I freefall, and with each second, I get closer and closer to the brightness. Still, I can’t help but think of the way this mirrored the odd drunk nightmare I had, falling away from the light at an impossible speed. No, I think. I would never, I would do anything to get closer.

I hit the ground on white brick, and hear Ven crying out as he falls behind me. 

“Graviga!” I cry and with perfect grace, he floats to the ground. A beautiful realization strikes me: like this, drunk on adrenaline and adventure, magic doesn’t seem quite so taxing and my spell is substantially more precise. There’s something inherently fueling about Scala ad Caelum, that was obvious in the ancient magic it radiates, but never could I have expected to feel so exhilarated. Especially with me being freshly out of practice.

Ven’s arms are out as he balances, face elated as he looks at me.

“Thanks!” He grins.

“Do you feel it?” I ask. “Stronger?”

“I dunno.” His face twists, but I suppose he didn’t come out of a year's worth of sitting around like I did. Maybe he doesn’t need rejuvenation, but certainly I did. This much alchemy, and alchemy of a different variety than I’ve ever known should mean absolute exhaustion, I shouldn’t have the energy to cast third tier magic, but I can and I do and pleasant tingles seem to dance across the surface of my skin. 

As we look around, it becomes apparent that we haven’t freefallen into nothingness, but back into the town square of the main island in Scala ad Caelum, and once more, the bricks have lit up, calling us. So Ven and I take off running, laughing as we find our way to a circle directly in the middle of the town. I clap my hands and slam them into the pavement. More destruction follows, and this time, Ven and I have to leap back, scrambling over each other as bricks crumble, sinking into the ocean. There’s a litany of curse words between the two of us, as we jump back and then again, and then again. The entire circle turns to dust, and light shines brightly across the chasm. Of course it does and of course it can’t be easy. There’s no way either of us are making a jump like this, not as the ocean bats waves back and forth like a cat would its paws. 

“Did you mean to do that?” Ven asks me.

“I guess. I’m just channeling energy into the circles. Someone else has already infused these with synthesis material.” I explain, and it begs the question that is already on his lips.

“But who?” He asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe the first Keyblade Masters who settled in this world. Al Bhed were typically banished from purist worlds, but they might have settled here for a while before Keybearers took power.” I tell him. “I’ve used this method before, it’s not totally unique.” After all, how else could bombs be set off in Transmute City to blow away Heartless at the first sign of darkness? “I just wish I knew how to get across there.” I say, nodding my head into the expanse of sea. 

“Actually, I think I can do that.” Ven says, pushing himself off of the ground that he was sprawled across. He extends a hand to me and I take it, but as I try to release him, he clutches me a little tighter. “You’re gonna wanna hang on.” He warns, so I do, allowing him to pull me in, one arm wrapped around me. I feel microscopic as he raises his Keyblade above his head with his free hand and wind wraps around us, whipping violently. The sheer force is nothing they I've ever seen, even Xaldin's most violent whirlwind pales in comparison. I almost don’t notice that we’re airborne, with the air smashing into us. That is, until our feet are touching down on the other side of the massive gap. I squeak as I tumble into Ven, nearly knocking the two of us over. But he catches me, far sturdier and far more confident with Aero spells than I. 

“Dude, warn me!” I snap, swatting his chest. He laughs, smiling very much like sunshine, once more the beacon I recall from my childhood. 

“Says the girl who jumped into a hole!” He counters.

“Fine, fuck you!” I laugh, swatting him this time with a lot less frustration. The two of us turn back toward the guiding light, which isn’t very far away. It’s another square in the center of this platform. We’re both a lot less surprise when I transmute and a hole drops out into the sea, but this time, I’m a little more prepared, a little more alight. 

“Okay, now watch this.” I grin at him, pointing a finger across the expanse, calling my shot. “Blizaga!” Ice draws a line through the sky, cutting through. I leap on, intoxicated to the marrow as the magic rushes through me. I leap into the rail I created, Ven at my heels, my hair tickling my face. This is more than dark magic or raw power have ever been to me, instead, this tastes so much like flowmotion with Sora in the sleeping realm, like swimming with Kairi. Pleasure for the sake of pleasure is the single most delightful feeling in this realm. Breath is snatched from my chest as I realize this is what Lea and I need. Another moment like this, another moment stealing Gummi Cycles or dancing on the balcony of a villa. I want nothing more than to turn to him like this and throw my arms around him, not feeling disconnect, not feeling his radiating disappointment, but clutching each other, laughing and high and so in love. When nothing else mattered, yes, that is what I crave, that is why I need all of this information. To look the possibility of prophecy in the eyes and turn my back on it. 

I touch down, Ven follows immediately behind me. We find our way to a third sigil on the ground--our fifth altogether -- and with even more preparation, we’re already riding the storm of our magic. This time, however, on the other side, there is not another sigil on the ground, but on that building, the building we stumbled upon in the very beginning with that same transmutation circle that first caught my attention. I ignite it, and the building tumbles into the ocean, the light following it, dancing away from me faster than I can catch. But even as it fades away, I see it light again, deep below what I can easily reach, beyond what I want Ven to follow me into.

“Can you trust me?” I ask.

“I’m not letting you do this alone, if that’s what you’re asking.” He says, so determined, looking so very much like Sora. Such blue eyes break my heart as the knowledge of what I will need to do sinks in. 

“Then I’m sorry.” I murmur. “But Ven,” I open the empathy link wide, spilling every bit of energy I mean to and then some. “You will stay put until I tell you otherwise.” The compulsion is systematic and pounds straight into his heart.

He wouldn’t have a chance if he tried. 

And me? I know the way without being told. I wave a hand and ice spreads across the sea, crystalizing it. So with light and swift feet, I tuck away the book of fairy tales and glide across the seal I have created, eyes on the prize. I don’t stop running, I don’t look back to hear Ventus screaming my name as he is bound in place, I go as far as I can, further than ever before and when I’m directly under the light, I stomp a foot into the ice and hold my breath as I make the plunge.

The water is frigid and clear, easy to see through as I pop my eyes open. I would hardly call myself a particularly strong swimmer, but what I lack in skill I make up for in raw determination. The shimmer from the ruins drags me forward, propels each movement of my arms, each kick of my legs, despite the numbing iciness, despite the immediate sluggishness of my limbs the second I broke through the ice. There’s no magic here, not when I can’t use my voice, just me.

I don’t think I’ve ever held my breath this long, spots prickle at my vision that I struggle to blink back. But each bubble that floats from my nose seems to threaten me, seems to hold me back. I can do this, I try to convince myself, I don’t get to come so far to be trapped beneath the ice I’ve created for myself. I don’t get to black out, spotty and weak when I can see what I’m supposed to do, when magic had me so high only moments ago.

My limp hands plant on the transmutation circle etched into some sort of ruin for only the fraction of a second, before they slip away and I start to sink, further and further. 

The waters are cooler and deeper as I start to tumble under, and with me, care slips away. Iciness is indifferent and now, like this, I could hardly care less about the rumbling that stirs beneath me, about the rubble that scoops me up, about the--

Air hits me, cool and crisp and I’m left gasping violently, body seizing as water is expelled from my lungs. I look, searching for Ventus, assuming he was the one who pulled me up from beneath, but instead, he’s standing perfectly still where I left him as the world begins to shift, to shake and spasm beneath us. Instead, what gripped me was the edges of one of the ruins I fell into. They shake as I rise, as more bricks and structures in Scala ad Caelum start to fall apart. The world is torn apart in front of my very eyes, and in my hazy, reawakened state, I scarcely have the good sense to call out to Ventus.

“Ven, move!” I scream, voice raspy, tearing in scrapes and tendrils, utter gravel against my throat. Still, it’s effective, and gripped by my words, Ven does leap, armor sealing around his body as he takes off flying toward me. Quickly, he scoops me up and doesn’t stop until we're at the Gummi Ship, which decay is starting to rain down on. We climb in, and as fast as my mind can function, I start the ship and ascend, holding my breath until we are in orbit.

Rubble rains, pounding into the sea in the world below us and I’m so drawn, I can’t help but angle the ship, tilting it just so that we can watch, clutching each other, not breathing, not moving, not speaking. We watch the world collapse in on itself. My stomach sinks. No, this isn’t right. I must be missing something, those were building glyphs, not destruction glyphs, not the normal transmutation circles I use. Those were made to create, but here we are, in the wake of a black hole. The world devours itself and at a safe distance, I don’t know who is more horrified, Ven or I. 

“Aqua’s going to kill us.” He breathes. I can’t even begin to fathom what Lea will say to me. I’m not even sure I want to return home as it stands. I came here for knowledge, to get ahead of the curve, but instead, I destroyed the damn curve. Is the only option now really to hide out, hoping my absence keeps my friends and family safe? I don’t know how I’ll be able to ditch Ven, to isolate, but I--

A supernova bursts in front of the two of us, white light so blinding that Ven cries out, tears his hand from me and covers his eyes with the back of his forearm. I yelp, pinching my eyes shut in tandem, arm shaking where it remains angled out toward Ven. There’s something so purifying about the brightness that seeps in, even to my closed eyes, something alluring and tempting, I want nothing more than to open my eyes, to watch this star forming, to watch the fruits of my own actions solidify. But as I make the consideration, Ven does reach out to me once again, fingers lacing through mine. He squeezes my hand, as bright and sunny as the scene that engulfs us, and somehow that keeps me grounded, so unlike the dreamy way he left me feeling the first time I met him. So I squeeze him back and will this moment, this alluring glow to last for eternity.

It doesn’t but I scream the second my eyes open.

My hands clap to my mouth, Ven tumbles forward, eyes blown just as wide as mine. He’s half standing, legs shaky as he presses his palms to the dashboard in the ship.

“Rueki.” The way he breathes my name makes me feel like a deity, all powerful. I am heavenly. Tears start to spill from his eyes, and if I weren’t so afraid to dip into his heart right now, I’m sure I’d find him just shy of broken. No, not broken, reborn.

The sight in front of us is not Scala ad Caelum, no. This world is not so starchy white, not so squeaky clean but infinitely more beautiful. The scene in front of us twinkles, even from this distance. Gone are the cables and pleasant waters, but now there are untouched forests, a castle made of mauves and sunrise colors, so unlike anything I have ever seen before. There’s a clock tower so massive it puts Twilight Town to shame. At this distance, at this elevation, a star at the center of the town glistens. Everything radiates untapped, raw, pure. This is the way the realm should be, this sort of truth, this sort of vulnerability, this sort of promise, dripping in potential. This dawning, this first light.

Daybreak Town. 

Ven is sobbing beside me, but I’m more fulfilled than ever, whole, swelling with pride, so alive. My fingers dance to the pouch on my belt the book of fairy tales is stored in. A key, a clue. But there’s no leash on my neck, just me. And if I crafted this world, I can lead my friends here. This is my leg up, this is my edge. Before the Master of Masters returns, before Xigbar, before--

Luxu returns, I will have stolen secrets from this world that seal the deal. 

Alone the alchemist will stand and in the twilight hear the call. And heard it, I have, but only on my own terms do I answer, and never to anyone besides myself. 

Perhaps I am their alchemist, but I will never be anything beyond my own. 

“Your resurrected it.” Ven chokes, voice wet and wavering.

“Your home.” I say, turning to him, the smallest of smiles on my face. More tears spill from his eyes.

“I had friends. I remember.” He breathes, as though his entire being has been waiting for this exhale. “I was so lonely for so long, I don’t remember all of it, just how dark it felt, how cold and painful it all was. But the war happened and after it, I had friends. Ephemer, Brain, Lauriam, Skuld.”

I go utterly rigid at the incantation of her name. I am itching for denial, for something more logical, for something less fantastical, but I understand, above all, what we are going up against. It will always be men with delusions of grandeur and massive schemes, so why not a girl sprung forward from the ancient past, why not Ventus too. If they all went forward in time, why not end up on the same timeline? Skuld appeared to be Lea and Isa’s age, but wouldn’t Ven be too if his heart didn’t spent a decade in a cage? Skuld was very pointedly kept fully alive, allowed to grow, to age, to shatter. I could throw my arms around Ven now, smothering him in my embrace, all too thankful that my prince charming was kept safe thanks to Aqua’s spell, and not shoved in a test tube by some repulsive, rodent of a man. 

“You know that girl we found, I think she was your friend.” I murmur, voice barely above a whisper. 

“The one Isa has been caring for?” He asks. I nod.

“Ansem kept her in a cage for so long, and then Xigbar took her. Took her and kept her alive in the grossest of conditions and kept me safe and clueless. Her name is Skuld.” I confess. “Maybe if she sees your face, she’ll understand, truly understand that she’s safe. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for her.” To be her, stripped of memories and artificially reinjected with them. No, I do understand. I understand in tenfold and it still does piss me off that she looked at me like something dirty. The way Saix used to look at me. But maybe Ven can be a mediator, Twilight knows he would be much more of an advocate for me than Isa ever could.

“Maybe.” Ven makes a face. “There are still so many holes, I don’t even remember anything about that other girl, the one that looks like you.”

“Maybe that means you just stumbled upon her, maybe you’re not responsible for anything.” I offer.

“I hope so.” 

And that hope is so thick, the entire ride back home, I feel as though I’m cutting straight through it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So one thing I've recently decided would be beneficial to preserve the quality of this story would be to take a week long break every ten chapters or so. I feel like such a dick doing this, but putting out chapters I love and hope you guys will is something I really value, and with the sheer amount of work that coming up with a story that almost all my own thoughts and ideas is something that's a lot harder work than sticking to the canon, to anyone who has done AU or rewrites, I give you guys so much prop! It's a lot of work, and like I said, I really feel awful every time I have to announce a break, but being that i can't just dive in and write a chapter anymore without any direction, I feel like this is something I need to do periodically so that I can keep staying on top of all of my story boarding/chapter outlines/goals for character dynamics/etc. I've got a whole notebook full, it's a thing. Thank you all for your continued love and support and I'll see you on the 23rd!

X.

Accurately enough to Ven’s prediction, Aqua is on an entirely different level when we make our way back to my home. Without Terra there to attempt to quell her, the house is in utter chaos and radiating from Ventus, without an empathy link necessary, is the overwhelming sense of missing a far earthier, more grounded human.

Instead, her eyes are a tidal wave as she stands, slamming her palms into the table that she rises from. Amaya is jittery as she rocks Lucidia, looking mildly like her heart is going to burst from her chest. Riku’s head is in his hands as he mutters something in a low voice that I can hardly hear. He looks up though, as the door closes behind us and sighs, head falling back.

“I told you she didn’t just leave.” Riku groans, to no avail.

“What were you thinking?” Aqua thunders, each syllable puncturing the air like the beat of a drum. “The King has Chip and Dale searching every corner of the Gummi map for traces of your ship, do you know you disappeared from us at one point? Did you think that was acceptable?”

Ven does not even attempt to tuck his tail between his legs. He just giggles which causes literal steam to rise from Aqua.

I turn to where Lea sits, between Amaya and Riku and my stomach momentarily falls out.

I might be skinned, that might happen.

Aqua is a tidal wave, but Lea might incinerate me, and that’s if I’m lucky. Immediately, my stomach snarls itself up and each thought that comes to mind has to be a conscious effort to untangle it. Lea does not know what I have accomplished, Lea is a logical man and will understand the importance in what I’ve done. My friends will benefit in tenfold from the progress Ventus and I have made.

I am still saturated in the glow of pushing my alchemy and magic to their limits and watching those borders break down. These people love me and I did something to help them. No one is going to be mad, no one is going to think I’m in danger of tumbling straight into Xigbar’s arms ever again.

“Yeah, okay, cool, great to see you guys. Does anyone want to hear about how Ven and I made more progress in a few hours than the whole lot of us did at all yesterday?” I set a hand on my hip, immediately steering toward the defensive. Lea’s eyes grow incredulous, he too rises from the table and takes an exaggerated step toward us. 

“Do you even listen to yourself anymore?” He asks, inclining an eyebrow, regarding me the way he might regard a child. Every muscle in my body strains, I could hit him, knock him down, snap at him for being so high and mighty when--

This was for us, I remind myself. He just doesn’t know, I repeat. He was so patient with me this past year, I need to be patient with him now, that’s how this works. But fuck do I hate the give part of the type of give and take games Lea and I play with each other. 

“I’m asking you to listen to me.” I enunciate, lacing my own fingers together, partially as a tether, partially in attempt to regain some warmth that he certainly is not exuding.

“Oh, I’m beyond that, Rueki.” The way he says my name hits hardest of all. I really am a child being punished and I don’t know if I’m more betrayed or disgusted.

“You used to be the person out there breaking down barriers with me, why can’t you just listen to me tell you what I’ve found?” I plead.

“I asked you to stay with me!” He pinches his eyes shut, turning sharply away from me, as though the very thought of looking upon me is so repulsive, he can’t even manage it.

“You accused me of being weak, I’m not!” I snap. “I chose for Ven and I to go to Scala ad Caelum, I’m the one that broke the world down and recreated Daybreak Town so that we could claim it before the Master of Masters did, I’m the one that stabilized Skuld, so fuck you for even beginning to insinuate that I am not capable of my own rational decisions!”

I don’t love the heaviness that settles into the air, bearing down upon Ven and I. Lea’s eyes reopen, Riku raises his brows, Aqua stops in her tracks, Amaya stops rocking Lucidia, gets up and leaves the room, whispering very soothing nothings to her child as though she is preparing for imminent decay. 

“You…” Aqua begins. “What do you mean you broke down Scala ad Caelum?” 

In that moment, Sora comes barreling down the stairs, cuts through the scene and throws his arms around Ven and I. I have never been so thankful for this child and the way his cheer disregard all social cues in my life.

“I told them you guys would be back! I could still feel you in my heart! Did you find something cool?” Sora asks.

“Sora…” Riku says in a very warning voice that actually has the boy stepping slowly away from Ven and I, brow quirked. “Rueki, Ven, what happened to Scala ad Caelum.”

“It was really cool, actually. You guys should’ve seen it. Embedded in the architecture was...well, I don’t really know.” Ven sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, and suddenly, I feel like I’m confessing sin.

“I think it’s reasonable to believe the people that founded Transmute City took shelter once in Scala ad Caelum. There were transmutation circles and glyphs etched across every single inch of the town, it’s not just intricate design, the world was made to be taken apart and put back together.” I explain. “I just connected the dots.”

“Why would you…” Aqua struggles. “What was going through your head when…” She runs a hand through her hair, looking very much like she might tear out a fistful. Lea looks even further beyond what she is, as though he is moments away from leaving the room. I recall the very same look when he was instructed to teach me to summon Nobodies.

“Why those glyphs then? Why did you just go experimenting, not knowing what would even happen?” Riku asks, again, a lot more level and I think he’s my single shot. He might be the only one in this room that actually wants to know a method behind the madness. 

“I knew they were building glyphs, set off by a chain. We had similar ones for the security system we used in Transmute City when the Heartless were a problem. To be honest, I really didn’t know what we were looking for, maybe another secret library or something, but I’ve spent enough time rummaging through libraries that led us nowhere to know we didn’t have time to do that again.” I say, flipping my palms up, opening up every part of me, because truly, this is for each and every one of us here. Everyone who suffered too much from the last war, everyone who feels a driving need to return to pain. Everyone I can aid by making sure nothing gets that far ever again. Still, Lea just looks so betrayed, so incredulous and I don’t know how to wipe that look off his face. “Nothing got broken, just repaired. For the first time in who knows how long, we have access to a place that only exists in lore, somewhere no one else can tell us about. We want intel, and now we can get it. Ven and I didn’t explore, we didn’t want to without you guys. We both just knew we had to do something.”

“We didn’t want to hold you guys back.” Ven says, mouth pressing into a line, hands shoved in his pockets. “We’re connected, and I’m connected to that world. We just wanted to figure out a way to make that connection worth something.”

“Ven…” Aqua sighs, shaking her head. “I hate that we’re here again.” And she goes to him and pulls him into her arms, into her soothing current that Ven eases into so nicely. No one holds me and I feel the arctic winds stirring inside of me. “Of course I trust you. I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t do this with me around, I just want to keep us safe.” She says as she releases him. 

“I know, you’re always so worried about doing good things and being good though, you just forget what’s right for us, what works for us.” He reminds her and she laughs, such a sweet, peaceful sound.

“What’s right and what’s good.” She recalls. “Well, I can’t say I’m particularly happy you two destroyed our library, but there is truth to what you’ve said. If you and Ven can utilize this connection, I don’t want you to be reckless with it, but it we can structure Daybreak Town to aid us, before that Master of Masters and Braig even realize it’s been reformed, I think that’s a good thing. Is Skuld ready to travel? Maybe she could come with us too?”

“No.” Lea says flatly. “Why do we even want to go? So what if we don’t know what this world looks like, doesn’t change the fact that right now, we’re a little bit lacking in the muscle department. I know a lot of you weren’t there to get your asses handed to you by Xigbar, but I tell you what, losing a four against one fight feels pretty trash. We get there and then what? We explore? What if they intercept us? What then? I get wanting to be prepared, but not all of us are.” And with that, he throws me the dirtiest look he can manage.

“We just did this to help everyone.” I repeat.

“A botched up, half assed plan doesn’t help anyone.” He shakes his head.

“Fuck you!” I snap.

“Fuck you, Rueki, you were around Xemnas long enough, how can you still not know a trap when you see one? This is exactly what I tried to tell you yesterday, Xigbar is your blind spot! You don’t see it, you don’t want him to be, but fuck, every time he yanks your leash, you just snap! I mean who else could get you to dive so deep into Sora’s heart, you nearly don’t come out? Who else could get you to keep a huge detail like, I don’t know, him making it through the war, from us?” He throws his hands up, face burning, much like my eyes. They sting with tears I don’t want to cry, my face is so hot as frustration and humiliation threaten to burst from me. I peel Ven’s arms off of me. 

I can’t slap Lea in the face, I can’t throw my ring at him and tell him not to speak to me again, I can’t disappear in on myself, even as the walls start to fold in on me. I did this for him, I did this because I have to love him more than he loves to be the hero. This is us on the opposite sides of right and good and if I don’t hold my ground then--

I remember the way his body hit the rock when Terra slashed at him in the Keyblade Graveyard. I remember the way he sacrificed himself for Sora. I remember him throwing himself in front of me when Radiant Garden fell. We shouldn’t have gotten this many chances, we have no business risking another and if he doesn’t love himself enough to step back, then I have to.

“If we want to explore, I think we need to do it now, before the Master or Xigbar can get to Daybreak Town.” I say in a gravel voice that doesn’t belong to me.

“I agree.” Aqua says gently.

“I’ll ready the ship.” Sora cuts in. 

And with mechanical movements, not saying a damn word, I lead them through the starlit galaxies, loathing every single constellation that passes my way, reminding me how dark things are inside of me despite everything. I lead them through misty heavens, straight toward Daybreak Town.

The ship gets close, close enough to disembark and then--

Translucent hexagons crisscross around the shape of this pastel world. I watch any hope I have of redemption in my husband’s eyes die. 

There shouldn’t be a barrier, not now, not here. There’s no reason, no battles we need to conquer as requirement, so why is this a wall that we can’t break through? My hands shake around the wheel as internally, I shove down the raging panic that breaks down the remnants of my heart. Ven can’t feel this, Sora can’t trace this, they can’t have this failure, they can’t have this defeat. It’s not them that stumbled forward, blindly, stupidly, letting a fucking book guide them right into a hole. Mentally, I clench around the empathy link and neither of the boys blanche and I count my secrets as a success. It’s with slow and deliberate movements that I stand, leaning forward.

“Sora, are you seeing anything from the back?” I ask softly, in that same voice that never seems to sound like my own.

“It’s clear.” Sora says. “Try again.” He suggests, still so bright, even when I can feel Aqua’s disappointment, Riku’s defeat and Lea’s utter disgust contaminating the ship. I have no choice, I bank on the hope Sora has and I don’t and this time, as we bring the ship closer, the barrier appears but I notice something. This time, as the hexagons dissipate, I notice that woven into their pattern is a very telling glyph. 

“It’s a door.” I mutter, mouth pressing together, tongue poking out against my upper lip, brow puckered as I lean in closer, almost touching glass. “I can get through.”

“What are you talking about?” Riku asks.

“Watch the hexagons.” I order, pushing forward once more, this time noticing how very apparent the sigils are to me as I’m searching. “Do you see it?” I asked, eyes wide as I turn around, hands still pressed to the dashboard. Ven’s eyes are narrowed as he processes, but Aqua’s are lit as well.

“That’s a glyph, right?” She asks.

“Glyph, transmutation circle, sigil, it’s all about the same. Regardless, I can activate that.” And with that, the defeat is replaced, just as easily, swept away with the wind. My eyes flick to Lea’s, longing for that same conspiratorial, quiet passion that used to buzz between the two of us once before. I’m met instead, by another type of wall, his silence, his blatant skepticism, and the sallow look on his face. He thinks I’m fucking stupid. I don’t know if I’m pissed or if I want to break down publicly. I settle for neither and do that thing I do where I’m counting my heartbeat, hoping that when I reach a certain, undetermined number, that the world will right itself. “I can, I can do it and get us in.”

“Are you sure that’s what it’s there for?” Riku asks.

“You didn’t see her, guys! It was like the world itself was telling her where to go, if anyone can get us into Daybreak Town, it’s Rueki.” Ventus insists, which completely seals the deal for Lea.

“We’re not doing this.” Lea murmurs. My insides fall out of me.

“You don’t want to check it out?” Sora asks at the same time I swear, loudly, that I can do this, that I am capable. The cacophony of noise does nothing to ease me. Instead, there’s more of a stirring as my insides begin weaving themselves together, strings of a spider’s web.

“You’ve gotta be kidding.” Lea mutters. “This is the oldest trick in the book, we’re being led.”

“What if we’re not though, what if this is our chance to sneak in and uncover secrets before the Master of Masters settles?” Ventus pipes in.

“What if he’s already there though, Ven?” Aqua asks. “I do want to get it, but I really think Lea’s right. We must’ve missed our window, I just don’t think it’s safe.”

“So what, don’t you think if there’s any chance of restoring my past, it’s by leading me to the place where it happened?” Ven protests. “I’ve lived through whatever happened here before, Aqua, I can handle it again!”

“Please, Ven.” She shakes her head. “I’m not going to boss you around. I know you’re a master now too, and as my friend, I trust you. But please. Trust me when I say Terra and I couldn’t handle something happening to you again. I'm not saying never, but now is not the right time.” She’s so placid, so convincing that I’m not surprised when Ven huffs a defeated sigh, nods and sinks into his chair. 

“Do you think it’s safe, Riku?” Sora asks, and at this, Riku’s mouth twists. 

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to dive into this without more information. I’m sorry, Rueki. This was a good find, if it were just me, I’d go down. But this is too big of a group and we’re too unprepared.” Riku shakes his head, hair brushing his face, obscuring him just enough to cut me off, just enough to seperate me. 

“Then I’m gonna trust Riku, sorry Rueki, I’d like to go with you, but you know what Kairi would do to all of us if we did.” Sora confesses, rubbing the back of his neck, as though this is easy, as though this doesn’t cut, as though he isn’t the last trampled shred of my hopes slipping away. 

I don’t want to meet green eyes that could cut me down through the veins. But hell if I don’t catch myself slipping into masochism again. I turn to him, searching for liberation, trying and failing to see someone who wants me to succeed, who doesn’t get high being the one at the top of the mountain, watching me slip off of it.

“Lea?” I ask in a voice that crackles, wet like a storm. 

“Why?” He shakes his head. “Why, when I just asked you? Why can you get lead so easily into exactly what he’s asking you to do, Rueki? This is what I was worried about, this is why I came to you alone last night, because I was trying to stop shit like this. You gave them back their world!”

“I can go in, though!” I promise, heart catching in my throat, like flypaper.

“At what the hell cost? How do you know you’re not unlocking the world for someone who is, for all intents and purposes, our enemy?” Lea snaps, smacking a hand on the front of his seat. I sputters, as though it is I who was struck. 

“How do you know that the Master is our enemy.” I say, voice so delicate, even I don’t believe it. I’m the earliest hours of Sunday morning, so soft, too easily rattled. The frame of mind Lea is in, is far harder, the skepticism in his eyes enough to burn me to a crisp. 

“Rueki.” He says my name, but it doesn’t feel like my own, not in that tone. He calls me like a stranger. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Lea…” Ven starts.

“No, you wanna drag our friends into this Rueki, I’m not gonna just sit by. I can’t watch you compromise yourself, I can’t watch you throw aside people you love cuz you’ve got too bad of tunnel vision to see a trap! Who do you think you are? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Has this prophecy thing so thoroughly fucked you that you forget what you turned into after the war? Are you really gonna be the one to rush you into another?”

“I’m the only one who isn’t rushing this!” I scream, voice shattering. “I’m trying to stop it before it can get to us! Don’t you think if Roxas and I had taken out Xemnas when we meant to, or if Terra had successfully defeated Xehanort, we’d have been spared the first war? I’m trying to be that person! I can do this Lea!” Because someone has to, and because at the end of the day, I’m better rounded than Roxas and smarter than Terra and if anyone else can slink away, through the shadows, through the absolute grit and break the future, it’s me. I will be the glitch in the system, the fine print that shatters the Master’s carefully constructed prophecy. If Lea could just stand by me through unreliability, I could make this happen.

“I can’t do this with you.” Lea shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Xigbar is literally calling you to jump and you’re asking him how high. Do you wanna know how Isa ended up knee deep in darkness? This is the ticket, Rueki! Keep following it, watch where it goes.” It’s a dare, it’s a threat, it sits so dirty on his lips, I want nothing more then to tear them off. To reach across and smack him, to scream that this isn’t the man who loved me unconditionally, and what the fuck is his problem, and doesn’t he know that I did this to show him that I’m not falling into anyone or anything?

I could tell him that I hate him more than Xigbar.

I could cut him straight to the bone.

Instead, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted alone. I didn’t mean to screw up. I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

I repeat apologies like a prayer, like they mean something.

They don’t, they just come out hollow, light as air, never cracking the surface, dusting soft and tentative over everyone’s comfortable peace.

The stars rush by my ship, they blur and bleed, but they lack everything bright I once clung to.

I don’t know how much I drink that night.

Enough for shame to sink in, enough for wild thoughts to tell me that I’m a mess, that my only option is to chase Xigbar down and hope that he takes me in, because that is the only place I belong. 

Enough that my brain tells me I should just die, because that would save me the humiliation of being a pawn and losing everything.

Enough to remind me why I don’t drink.

I fall asleep on the floor in the sun room and effectively block out any and everyone around me.

\--

It’s two days and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Lea. Of course, it’s better this way. Of course I feel pleased at the control that distance offers me.

Of course I’m fine and not checking my phone every fifteen seconds hoping for a distraction.

Text me Del, text me Kairi, text me Roxas, text me Xion. Text me anyone who will keep my thoughts safely anchored away from the whereabouts of this man I love.

I’m hyper aware of his presence and so very turned off to him in one. He spends his days in Isa’s room, with him and Skuld and I spend mine as alone as ever. It’s the same as when Kairi died, me tucking myself into corners, contemplating how small I can possibly make myself. Not enough, is the answer, though he never tries to corner me.

From within the sun room’s closed doors, I hear a new and distinct laughter in the living room, a snorted sound that almost reminds me of Kairi’s laugh, but twice as hearty. I see a flash of red, one of black and one of blue. Lea and Isa have their backs to the room, but I can make out Skuld on the couch, howling out laughter, looking worlds more alive than the last time I’d seen her. With no trace of snottiness, she sets a hand on Lea’s arm, almost as though she’s anchoring herself on him. Her eyes light up, and though I can’t hear what she’s saying, I can see her pantomiming something, with huge, exaggerated, charismatic gestures. Lea and Isa both laugh loudly, and I feel contempt about the way her nose crinkles up and her eyes twinkle like stars. She leans forward now, hands on her own knees, rapt and attentive and so very bright looking. The tiniest little smirk quirks at the edge of her lips, she shrugs and say something that must be the perfect amount of dry and absolutely hilarious, because now, along with Isa and Lea laughing, I hear Ven laugh and come clambering over, looking so very excited to just be in her presence. They fit together so nicely, the four of them, puzzle pieces made for each other. Ven says something, Skuld seems to agree with him but not Lea, because again, Skuld leans over, reaches toward him and taps her finger on his nose. I can read her lips through the room, she’s teasing him, ‘got it memorized’ and it’s cute and funny and quirky and even I am invested in the way she holds herself, graceful and just, but not without life, not without brightness. She’s not dependent on Lea’s light like I am, but rather, helps him shine, light’s Isa’s way. 

I had fantasized about a massive house to open to the ones I love, to offer my friends comfort in the midst of our peaceful lives, but now, this house feels gigantic, and I am a lone spec. If anything, the room that my own desperation cannot fill is just a reminder of how alone I am in a place I’m supposed to call my own.

But this is my fault, this is my burden, I need to eat the dirt and accept that I am nothing to savor. 

\--

It's been three days since unlocking Daybreak Town and my body feels cold. Ice settles into my veins, clogging the current, stopping production of all that I am.

But I’m alright in the cold, it doesn’t bother me, I remind myself. It’s always like this, as far away from Lea as I can manage that I remind myself what I was--who I was-- before I met him was perfectly fine, I don’t need better. I survived, I endured, I was not moved and all was extraordinary.

I’m not the one to blame, I remind myself. He is. Every step I’ve taken has been in his direction. Steering him right for so long that I lost sight of true north. How can he expect anything else, when he was so mutated and distorted when I met him that he was scarcely even something to consider human?

I’m scrambled jigsaw pieces now and he can’t even be bothered to guide me, fuck him, this is his shortcoming not mine. 

But maybe I’m only thinking that way, because I’m watching them again. Maybe they don’t know I’m in here, maybe they’re busy with each other, maybe they’re at a loss with me. But there’s Isa, Lea and Skuld again, on the floor in the living room, watching a movie, Skuld grabbing handfuls of popcorn, with absolutely no attempt at manners. Lea must say something, because she snorts and throws handfuls at him, Isa shakes his head laughing and Lea grabs Skuld, scooping her into one arm, giving her a noogie with the other. She laughs and swats his hands and kicks until Isa huffs and takes a seat between the two of them, never looking so pleased in his entire life. Lea throws an arm around him, Skuld kicks her feet onto his lap and Lea doesn’t even seem bothered by the mess made of the house like this, smiling wider than I’ve ever seen him before. He doesn’t need the marks beneath his eyes when he’s got them, but suddely I do and everything is closing in again.

I should call upon Xigbar. Luxu. If I’m made for him, why not? Surely he knows the direction to steer me, surely I can trust him, surely I can love the way I come undone, his single golden eye locked onto me, so fixated, so adoring. I could call him into my heart right now, beg for answers, plead for secrets that I and only I can know. 

And he’d tell me, of course he would. He’s been holding his very breath for me, and he’d be more than happy to fill the gaps that have been left behind and if Lea can fill my place with an angular dark haired, golden eyed Keybearer, than why can I not do the same to him, why can I not cut him just as deep, why should he not suffer and watch me come alive in ways that I can’t with him?

But the reality of it, is that the more that I fantasize about watching him ache, the more I realize he isn’t and that I don’t want him to, and that I just want to watch him look that whole with me, instead of the two of us trading places, drowning in each other’s chaos.

\--

It’s the fifth day and I have every intention to spend another day in our sunroom, counting down the seconds until Kairi returns home. Because she’s going to. Any time now, any minute now. She promised, she texted me this morning and swore that by the end of the day, she’d be home, that all was well and she couldn’t wait to see me. 

So I sit, I’m patient, I wait like she had for so long, in my own silence, in my own heart, in my own head, in the stillness of--

“Are you gonna come out or are you just going to avoid me forever?” Lea’s voice makes me taste bile, abruptly the sunlight sours and I want to bury my face in the crook of my arm.

“Kairi’s coming home today, I’d like to see her when she lands.” Are you here on purpose or did you just get bored without me to abuse? Fucking asshole. I don’t know if I’m more angry or upset, but balling my hands into fists and pressing my fingernails into my palm hardly seems to alleviate things anymore. It certainly doesn’t change how consuming the loneliness feels, the way I’m buried in it, safe only in the grave I’m unconvinced I dug myself. I did want this all to be my fault, that was the point, wasn’t it? That I can fix things that are my fault, remedy my own ails. But surely, not all of this can be me. This distance, most of all cannot be me, not when I have been screaming inside to close it. Not when every hurtle I’ve taken is to get closer to him. I can’t deny, I don’t think he can either, but we’ve been miles apart, out of one another’s reach since Shibuya.

I’m unprepared for fantasizing about days without my best friend, because at least when I was grieving her, the war was done and Lea was firmly plastered to my side, no matter how hard I tried to shove him away. Now, I cannot even fathom a way to close the rift. 

“Oh, that’s all?” He’s unconvinced and rightfully so.

“That’s all.” I say quickly, biting down on my lower lip, willing myself to say no more. Tension bubbles up in my chest, pounding, unrelenting, I’m burning up and have no clue how anyone manages to stay silent when this anger is tearing its nails down my insides, begging to get out. “How’s Skuld?”

“Better.” He replies, voice at the edge. I predict his movements before he even makes them. As I turn back, he scrubs a hand through his hair, takes a huge breath, and with impossibly long strides, staggers over to me, shoving one hand into his pockets. “Are we seriously doing this? We’re fucking strangers in our own house.” 

“You’re the one who doesn’t trust me.” I ball my fist up, turning back away from him. 

“Twilight, Rueki, I never said I didn’t trust you!” He throws both hands up and all I want to do is throw hands in a different way. 

“So cornering me and telling me not to let Xigbar get to me was what, a pep talk?” I snap, shoulders tightening as the words crash out of me. “Humiliating me in front of our friends and accusing me of being an idiot led into a trap was your idea of a good talk about our marriage?”

“Were you even listening or did you just think it would be more fun throwing a tantrum?” He groans. “I begged you to just stay put and you up and took off with Ven. And that’s ignoring the fact that you flat out did exactly what I asked you not to, you gave the Master of Masters and Luxu--”

“Don’t fucking call him that.” I turn, eyes searing. 

“He called himself that, sweetheart, you’re the one who heard his name in your own head, I don’t know what you want from me. We haven’t even talked about that, either.” He reminds me, as if I need it, as if the constant nagging isn’t always yanking at my mind. 

“You don’t need to lecture me about anything more, Lea. I’m just gonna hang out here and do nothing.” I wave a hand, dismissing him entirely as I curl a leg to my chest. “Even though if anyone has the power to preemptively strike, it’s me. But whatever, it’s fucking cool, I’ll just sit around. Makes you feel like a real big hero, doesn’t it? You’ve got another asshole in the making that you can babysit, might as well just call me a Berserker. It’s not like I’m even functional anyway, because I’m too weak to fight off fucking Xigbar.”

“Do you actually listen to yourself?” He groans, slamming a hand on the windowsill behind my head. I leap a little but spark reflexively, which more than makes up for his little jump scare.

“Well, someone has to. You’ve made it pretty damn clear that after the last war, you don’t trust me for shit.” I roll my eyes.

“I’m fucking sick of you always going ahead like you’re the only one that knows anything, that’s what I don’t trust. You’re not an idiot, I’m well aware, but dammit, Rueki, you think you’re the only one who wants to take action?” He asks.

“No, I think I’m the only one who doesn’t want this war!” I shout, face growing hotter and hotter. “And if there’s some sort of prophecy about me, which it seems there is, whether we want it or not, you’ve got to let me get ahead and ruin it for them before this can even start!”

“So I can watch you slip away from me?” He retorts, face contorted as though he’s been struck. My stomach churns. Oh. This is new, this vulnerability in the wake of our arguments. I’ve never seen this from him. I turn away, looking to the cushion I sit on, picking at it with too long of fingernails. “If you think this is about trust, you’re wrong. I do trust you, Rueks. But you see a problem and you don’t even try to talk to me. You didn’t say a damn word when you and Isa came to some sort of understanding about putting him down--don’t think I didn’t notice. You just dive the hell into Shibuya when if you would have opened your damn mouth, having Roxas with you would’ve saved you and Sora without any strain, you keep all these secrets about Xigbar or Luxu, or whatever you want to call him, because you can’t be bothered to help bring me in for damage control. The shit with Daybreak Town was the damn icing. I do trust you, but I don’t know how you can think that I’m just okay watching you run as fast as you can from me. You are slipping through my fingers!”

I could be sick. 

“So run with me. Nothing is holding you back.” I snarl, still unable to meet his eyes, which are peeling me apart now. I can’t take this openness, just scream at me, I plead.

“Except everything we’ve ever fought for.” His voice is whisper quiet, barely a simmer. Finally, I turn to him, tucking a leg beneath me. “You don’t know what you’re running toward, sweetheart. None of us do.”

“We’ve played in the dark before, this shouldn’t stop us. It’s you and me, Lea. We can scheme our way through the end of the fucking world.” I insist. 

“Doesn’t work when the dark is leading you to places I can’t go.” He reminds me, running a hand up my leg. Tenderly, he squeezes my thigh and heart in tandem. “We’re supposed to look out for each other, no matter what. How do I do that if I don’t even see where you are?” 

“I just want to make this go away.” I choke out, through gritted teeth. His arms wrap around my waist, he tucks a leg beneath him and bows his head into my lap. My resentment folds like a house of cards. I crumble onto him, circling my arms around his shoulders, my cheek pressed into the rock hard gel of his hair. “Lea, I can’t do this.”

“So don’t.” He shakes his head. “Stop running through the dark and just hang behind with me.” He pleads. 

“What am I supposed to do?” I all but whimper, hating myself for falling into this, hating myself for shattering so thoroughly. For hoping so plainly that he really can guide me like some sort of compass. But I do, and if there’s anyone who can, it’s Lea, if I just have to learn to be obedient for five fucking seconds to hold him so close to me again, I’ll take it, I should take it, I’m an idiot if I don’t. He’s supposed to be everything, my all, above and beyond, and if every single step I take and choice I make isn’t toward the goals we have imagined, he’s right, I am running away from him. If I’ve learned anything it’s that any sort of happiness we’ll ever get will be hard earned. I’ll scrape and claw for it if I need to. 

“Just let me lead the way for a little, alright? You’ve got a lot on your plate right now, babe. Your best friend is coming back today, there’s a crazy ass prophecy that you might very well be involved in. There’s kind of a lot going on. You pulled me out of the shitstorm when I was too involved. How many times do I have to tell you I get it and I’ll do the same for you, before you get it memorized?” He murmurs against my skin, the brush of his lips feeling electric. I squeeze him a little tighter, trying to smother myself in his warmth. 

“I feel so lost.” I choke. “I used to actually be useful.” 

“And now you get to be useful by lounging around the house with me.” 

“So what happens when you actually have a mission? You said it yourself, you’re a Keybearer. And eventually something is going to happen with this prophecy bullshit and I--” 

“Am going to be right at my side. And I’ll be at yours. We’re not gonna be another couple in this group that just ditch each other.” He shakes his head against me, the brush of his hair incredibly satisfying.

“We’re the only actual couple, I mean that’s gotta count for something.” I mutter. He chuckles, lips buzzing against my leg. 

“Regardless, we’ve come way the hell too far to lose sight of everything because you were scared and I was too weak and judgemental to support you.” He tries. “That’s not us.” 

“The shouting at each other thing is kind of us.” I concede. “Usually followed by makeup sex.” 

“It really is fucking fire when you’re mad at me.” I feel him grinning hugely into my skin and bloom.

“Bedroom?” I suggest.

“This is my house. I can disrespect it where I see fit.” And with that, he seizes me by the tails of his scarf. His head pops up from my lap and he straight up drags me onto the floor, into his lap. My heart leaps into my throat, I throw my arms around him, as though if I don’t let him catch me I’m sure to stumble. His massive hands glide up the contours of my body, to cup me by the jaw and drag my mouth to his. With heavy lips that push and demand, he swipes his tongue against my lower lip and tugs my mouth open. My eyes flutter shut, hands balling up the fabric of his hood. I’m very aware of the constraints of our current location, but can hardly bring myself to be bothered. Not when I can rock my hips against his thighs and press my crotch against him. The sound Lea makes is monstrous, deep and sexy, from the base of his throat. His hands jump to my waist, he squeezes me, shifts me slightly and pulls one of his legs out, setting the other on the other side of me, so that we’re properly straddling each other’s thighs. Fuck. Exhaling sharply, I toss my head back, granting his perfect mouth access to my neck. He works so quick, so messy, dragging wet kisses across my jaw, my neck and the hollows of my collar bones. With hot, heedy breath and soft lips, I turn to putty, rocking slow and deliberate against his thigh. “Mmmm, good girl. You gonna come before I even touch you, sweetheart?” His voice is heavy enough to rumble down through my belly, between my legs. Everything below my hips clenches. It’s more than the delicious friction of me rubbing myself against his thigh, it’s him, it’s the way he talks to me, it's his vibrant, heavy lidded eyes and the way he's getting hard just hearing my breath start to stagger. 

“You keep talking to me like that and you know I will.” Is my whimpered reply. 

“Fuck,I love that.” Lea chuckles, a puff of hot air against the damp, sensitive skin of my neck. “So pretty like this.” He breathes. The whine that escapes my throat is anything but subtle. Neither is the way he takes my hand into his, guiding them to the bulge in his jeans. 

“Shit.” I rasp. Lea’s response is biting down on my shoulder so hard, I hammer a fist into the floor beneath us. Slick and wound up in the most delicious way, I set my pace, clit throbbing, pulse fluttering. He’s all encouragements, hands pushing and pulling working me against him, a perfect match to my rhythm. It’s all tension, the way we grind, the furious pace we work at, buzzing and hungry, my hands pumping and gripping at his length through his jeans. He’s nearly choking beneath me, chest and shoulders tight as I center in on his heat, on the sounds he makes, on the way I soak to my thighs. Each pulse of my hips is a shove, is the tide dragging me in and with Lea’s mouth, sealed around my neck, a jolting burst of wet head, I come undone, every single muscle in my body tense like a fist as I ride down, trembling, flushed. 

“Thank fuck.” He snarls, unbuckling his pants. In a swift, desperate move, he tears them straight open, works just enough space for his cock out and is patient for exactly long enough for me to pull off my shorts. He tugs my panties aside with one hand and shoves me down onto his hips with another. 

“Hell.” I hiss, tossing my arms around his shoulders, biting my lip as my head sinks down into the crook of his and I settle into his cock, clenching immediately around him.

“Dammit, Rueki, do you have any idea how bad that fucks me up? Watching you get yourself off?” He murmurs, fisting my hair as he pounds into me from beneath, hips snapping, sharp enough to bruise. I can barely take a breath, the way he punctures me. But he rocks me so sweetly, and the feeling of our hearts beating in tandem, the both of us flushed, slickened skin sticking with each thrust, is exactly the level of filth that I crave. The world grows absolutely fuzzy as he ruts into me, grabbing handfuls of hips, of ass, of every bit of soft skin he longs to devour. “You have any idea how much I love seeing you like this? Feeling so good, looking so sexy?” He purrs as his pace picks up, irregular, beautifully jagged.

“Why don’t you show me baby? Show me what I do to you.” I urge. A growl rumbles deep from within him. Lea grabs at my hair, yanks it and slams my head into the back of the cushion. The cry I emit turns, like flipping a switch, from pain to pleasure as his lips latch onto my neck, and flames lick my skin as he does. I have to chomp down on my lips to stop from screaming as Lea pours himself into me the two of us gripping each other for dear life. “Holy hell.” I whisper, head still thrown back, eyes on the ceiling. 

“I’m pretty good, huh?” He teases, kissing my temple lightly before pulling out from under me. As quickly as my jelly limbs can manage, I adjust my panties, scoop my shorts off the floor and yank them on, most of it done without having to stand. 

“You’ve gotta be good at something.” I snort pushing myself up with my triceps against the sofa. “Like, you know, keeping me sane. It’s a pretty fucking big talent.”

“Meh.” Lea replies, scooping me up after his jeans are thoroughly fastened. My legs lock around his waist and I sigh as he pushes his lips against mine. “I do a pretty medium job at that, you’re still batshit.”

“I’m trying to give you credit. And be cute.” I roll my eyes, hopping back down. 

“Good thing you’re smart. And tough as nails. You’ve gotta be good at something.” He teases, ruffling my hair. I decide that back handing him across his toned stomach is the best way to go about things. He wails loudly, but it quickly dissolves into laughter. “You’re an ass. And your best friend just landed.”

My face must visibly brighten because Lea chuckles softly, squeezing my arms, as though the way I glow even lights him up. 

“Why do we need to make up right when she gets here? Life would be a hell of a lot better if we could time our fights so that I actually had someone to spend time with when we’re pissed at each other.” I tease. 

“Oh, go play with your girlfriend.” He smirks. “I’ll be here when you’re done. And it’ll give me some time with Skuld and Isa.” As much as I love the way he burns for me, wild and untamed, there is a pang, a clench of jealousy. He comes alive for me too, he brightens up at my presence too, I'm the one he loves, I'm the one he's married to.

Footsteps come hammering through the house and the doors to the sunroom are thrown open.

“Rueki!” Kairi comes barreling into the room, knocks Lea aside and throws her arms around me. Both of us quite quick to recover, Lea laughs and I pretend nothing ugly reared its head inside of me as I hug Kairi tightly

“Hey dumb dumb, took you long enough.” I say, feeling my life center just a little more pleasantly as her and I pull apart, as things have been repaired between Lea and I. Others make their way in, namely Sora, who is chatting excitedly with Donald and Goofy and Del, Roxas and Xion. 

“Sora!” Kairi cheers, swinging her arms around him now while Lea bothers himself with Roxas and Xion and too many pleasantries, but I don’t particularly mind. This is how I wanted my home to feel, not empty and bleak the way it has. 

“Hey there!” Del beams at me, looking about as electric as a person can, radiating warmth and enthusiasm from head to toe, in only a way that Del can. He’s good at this hero shit, he wears it as easily as Sora, I cannot deny. 

“Hey. So what’d you guys botch up? How many worlds are in a state of disarray because you were allowed in.” I tease Del, offering a wink. 

“Oh, fuck you.” He laughs, smiling hugely.

“The worlds aren’t actually really off, Rueki.” Xion confesses.

“If anything, they’re swelling with more light than ever before.” Kairi explains. “Oh, but guys, we stopped in Corona! It’s so beautiful and there’s going to be a festival next month celebrating a year since Queen Rapunzel’s coronation, we have to go, can we? Please! They light up these lanterns, the streets are decorated, there’s dancing and flowers!” Kairi is almost nearly swooning and the way I love watching Del flush with pride at his own heroism, I love watching this more, Kairi’s descent into an utterly girly mess, claiming the need to just enjoy adolescence that she was deprived of. Regardless, all of these excited faces are mine to appreciate, mine to enjoy. 

Chatter erupts and I drown it, each ebb and flow in the conversation a new rhythm to suck me in, deeper and deeper. I want to smother myself in my friends, in familiarity.

Another pair of footsteps treads gently, and through the doors, peeks a head of dark hair. Big golden eyes scan around the room and light up upon seeing Lea. They flick to me and there’s a shudder, a glitch, an obvious look of distaste. 

Skuld steps into the sunroom, one hand on her hip, almost pouting as she seems to remember that the person whose house she lives in is still here. I bristle too, though I hardly think it’s unjustified. It’s not just because she was scared and had been abused for so long, not with the way I’ve seen her flourish around Lea and Isa and Ven. There’s something about me that she outright hates and were it not for the fact that Lea and I had just patched things up, I would not be above confronting her now.

“Hey!” Lea waves at her and she waves back and she’s smiling again and the urge to hit her bubbles.

They’re friends, Rueki, I remind myself. This isn’t a competition and whatever issues she has with me are probably just because she’s skittish and I’ve hardly tried to win her over. This can be resolved intelligently, I don’t need to always be a brat. 

“Hey.” She says, dimples popping as she smiles. Okay, I can hate how cute she is, that is absolutely fair. Kairi turns, cocking her head to the side.

“Who’s this?” Roxas asks, to my surprise. It’s not like I’m actively pinching off the empathy link right now, but could it be that I’m getting a handle on it again?

“I’m Skuld.” She says. “And I think there’s probably a lot I should catch you guys up on.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so happy to be back! I have done a lot of plotting, a lot of work on this story and have seriously developed some character arcs. Like, this feels damn good and I have missed the hell out of Rueki. So that you all are aware I've come to the decision that this story will have 3 major arcs, unlike my usual 2. They'll all end up being around 20-25 chapters so we're looking at possibly around the realm of 70 chapters to this bad boy. I'm also working on a companion story for this piece from Luxu/Xigbar's point of view, so there doesn't need to be as much exposition about the past and explaining Union Cross. 
> 
> Anyhow, we're in it, we're here, enjoy this chapter

XI.

Skuld taps her fingernails at the edge of the granite countertop. She licks her chapped lips, she puckers her brow. She opens her mouth about fifteen times to say something and closes it right back up again, carding long, slim fingers through her hair. 

From someone who knows very well what it looks like, she might be losing her fucking mind.

“You know, if you’re not comfortable, you don’t need to say anything.” Lea suggests from behind me, I feel his diaphragm move against where my head rests on his abdomen as he speaks. Skuld shakes her head, silken hair brushing her high cheekbones.

“Just a lot of eyes.” She confesses, not looking up from where she’s leaning against the island counter in the kitchen, the rest of us are all seated somewhere in the living room. As though she is safely tucked behind a podium, she runs her hands across the counter top, seeming to find some sort of comfort in the cool granite. 

“I’ll help fill in where I can.” Ven pipes up, from where he’s situated on the floor, next to Terra, at Aqua, Amaya and Mickey’s feet. “Sorry, things are just kinda hazy.”

“It’s not that, I’m just not really used to doing this kinda thing without Ephemer, that’s all.” She rocks back on her heels, tucking her hair in the process, and there’s an awkward sort of exchange between her and Ven, but between Ven and Sora’s memories, I piece together that this Ephemer is the one who helped us in the Keyblade Graveyard. The fragment of a boy with magic from the past.

So Skuld knows more tragedy than just body horror. Okay, well, she’s a hell of a lot more put together than me, I’ll give her that. 

“Who’s Ephemer?” Kairi asks, from where she, Sora and Riku are next to Lea and I. When Sora doesn’t pipe up with an answer, I become curious. Did my thoughts not tumble into him? Or are these nosey teenagers finally losing basic courtesy? Regardless, I think it’s damn sweet, the way Kairi is trying to ease Skuld into this, though no one has eased me into anything, no one guided me through hell with kid gloves, but that’s fine, I’m not salty, I’m just obviously more capable of--

What?

I’ve got a hell of a problem, and I think four letters could describe it perfectly but Kairi’s bubblegum sweetness makes me feel guilty bringing up trauma, and Lea worked too hard to put me back together to up with a relapse this soon. I can’t sit here comparing Skuld and I all day. It’s petty and stupid and not me, not at all.

“A friend of ours.” Ven grins, face coming to life, vibrant and sparkling. Skuld twinkles too, baring teeth as she smiles.

“He and I were friends before we had Keyblades and everything. Back when we were just little. When we got our Keyblades, we joined the same Union, we just wanted it to feel like a big club, like things were fun.” She says, wistfully, voice lingering on Ephemer’s name in a way that reminds me of the last time I did something like this.

Twenty questions with Sora, and the way he recanted the tale of his young love. I remember the way his voice settled into Kairi’s name, but the big dumb idiot still isn’t holding her hand. 

But this does give me an idea.

“Things didn’t stay that way though?” I more ask than say. Skuld’s eyes are harder as she looks at me, more cautious, and the way she puts herself on guard, angling herself behind the island, is quite obvious, to the the point that there are looks exchanged in the room. I tell myself I’m reading too much into them, but there’s something about the aggravation of it all that has me convinced the thought on everyone’s mind is ‘what did Rueki do this time’. Rueki, emotionally volatile, grudge holding, moody, violent, uncompromising Rueki. How did Rueki bully this poor, wounded girl? Nevermind growth, nevermind what I’ve dealt with and the fact that I signed up for none of it. I bite on my lower lip. This isn’t going to be tense, I order myself. This isn’t going to be about paranoia, this is going to be fun. “Last time we had a new Keyblade Master come onto the scene, I made him play twenty questions with me. We could do it again, make you feel a little less like you’re being drilled?”

“You didn’t.” Del makes a face.

“She did.” Sora laughs. “It was fun, she brought me food.”

“What’s twenty questions and why does Del hate it?” Riku asks. 

“It’s Rueki’s way at convincing people that interrogations are fun.” Amaya laughs, soothing Lucidia’s hair.

“It’s just an information exchange.” I roll my eyes. “Del hates it cuz he doesn’t know the answer to anything.”

“That is true.” Amaya grins. “When we used to play as kids, we’d just lay in our beds at the orphanage, Rueki and I. She’d ask me something, I’d ask her something, we’d just take turns until one of us fell asleep.”

“It was pretty much the only way I learned any of the rules in the orphanage.” I nod. “Or anything about the Keyblade.”

“And the only way I learned anything about Transmute City.” Sora nods.

“It’s hardly much of a game.” Isa says, and I contemplate leaning over to pinch him, but decide to behave myself a little better. With my eyes glued to Skuld’s, I almost feel like there’s a test at hand. She considers me, chewing on her lower lip for a moment, the intensity of every year she’s missed, heavy in her eyes. Finally, after lifetimes, she nods.

“Okay, so you want to know when it all went wrong.” She repeats.

“Yes.” I confirm, though there’s once again that tension and apprehension, like why the hell can’t Rueki tiptoe around this girl when no one ever tiptoed around Rueki. Kairi reaches out for my hand and I straight up flinch, elbow slamming into Lea. There’s a weird moment of eye contact between Kairi and I, where she’s twelve kinds of confused and so am I, but something about the sudden contact, and her sunflower scent and her freckled hands feels foreign. Which of course it does. She was gone for a year and back for a day and now she’s just settling back in, and it’s okay that I don’t know how to act anymore and she isn’t missing a beat. We’ve just got to adjust, that’s all. There’s just a lot of change.

There’s just a lot of everything.

“Well, when Ephemer and I stopped spending as much time together, there was someone else, another boy, who noticed his absence too. We didn’t realize how little we knew until then, but we pulled everything we had together. Which is about what you guys have pulled together now from the research. A lot of kids had Keyblades, we were gathering up light for something, we didn’t know. We were led by different Unions, by the Foretellers, the Master of Master’s apprentices. Masters Ira, Aced, Invi, Gula and Ava. We thought everything was just fun and we were just heroes going on adventures. But while we were searching for Ephemer, we ran into one of the Foretellers. I’m not really sure why she warned us, what made us special, I know that I was picked by the Master of Masters and I think that was supposed to be an honor, but now it just feels gross.” Skuld says, curling her hand into a fist.

“Yeah.” I murmur, voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes meet mine again and this time I can tell she’s searching. 

“Things derailed pretty quick after that. Master Ava asked us to join a special group called the Dandelions. She told us a war was inevitable and the Dandelion were to go to a new world and rebuild upon the ashes of the one we knew.” Skuld says.

“And that’s how Scala ad Caelum was created.” Aqua predicts. Skuld shakes her head.

“No, not really. We weren’t sent forward into some new reality, we were put in data and given rule books we could hardly understand, like we were locked away until the real world could right itself. But the data was unstable. I found Ephemer. He joined the same group I did, the Dandelions, and we both became Union Leaders, like it actually meant something and we could actually make a difference. Our friend followed us too, but unlike us, he couldn’t remember the war and what actually had to happen to shuttle us away into the data.” Skuld leans forward, body pressing a little closer to the counter top, as though she’s trying to shield herself, as though this is getting overwhelming, as though this is becoming too much to handle. I know, because I would collapse the same, hiding through the curtains of my hair, the way she is. 

“You don’t need to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to.” Isa says in a very serene, very gentle voice, a tone he has never used with me.

“I do, how else will you guys know the truth, Ven doesn’t remember.” Skuld protests, fists clenching and unclenching from her odd position. I recognize the gesture, of course, it’s something I’m constantly doing, trying to displace anxiety. “You deserve to know the truth.” She gets out through gritted teeth.

“In the data though, that’s when things went bad? I ask quickly. Skuld nods shakily and I nod too, pushing myself away from Lea and Kairi just a little, leaning forward toward her. “That’s all we needed to know. It’s your turn to ask a question.” I tell her and her eyes go huge. Fuck anyone who thinks I don’t know better than to shove someone head first into a panic attack. “That’s how this game works, it’s not fun if we’re not all playing.”

“It’s not fun at all.” Del counters. I reach behind me, to where Naminé is seated and nab a pillow off of the love seat she’s on so that I can chuck it right at his stupid head. Del may be training actively, but his initial reflexes are still trash and with a huff, he takes the pillow straight to the face. This is delightful, not only to me, but to Lucidia, who giggles wildly, clapping her hands.

“See, tons of fun.” I snark. Even Skuld is biting her lip, trying not to laugh. It’s odd, the sense of warmth I get from her approval. And it’s not that I’m trying or not trying to start fights with her, I know both Riku and Aqua were initially apprehensive about me and Isa still isn’t a huge fan, but it’s the fact that Skuld and I are two sides of the same coin, two that Xigbar has messed with too much already in two very different ways, two with plethoras of scars and connections to Isa and Lea, and memory problems, and lost best friends, and that’s why I’ve got to win her over. That’s why I’ve got to show her I trust her and not coddle her, but not push her either. Because I think if anyone can help each other here, it’s her and I.

And--

And I’ve seen how nasty things get when the people Lea loves don’t get along, I’m not doing that again.

“Do you know the prophecy about you?” Skuld asks me.

“I’ve heard some of it.” I answer. “Alone the alchemist will stand and in the twilight hear the call, to meet the light’s endless demand or in the darkness watch them fall.” I recite, because of course I’ve memorized it, of course I’ve replayed the sound of the Master of Master’s recanting it on my head, like a track skipping. A collective shudder circles the room, Amaya looks quite sallow, Naminé’s hands rub together. 

“Do you want to know all of it?” She asks. My breath scuttles, my insides ignite, like a grenade is clutched inside of me.

“Not right now.” Lea says quickly and I turn with burning eyes, feeling every bit of a leash on my neck. 

“You know that holding her back doesn’t work.” Kairi smirks a little, like she’s right and she’s on my side, but this is all it takes for Lea and I to exchange glances and for me to crumble, to submit to his will. 

“No, he’s right.” I murmur. 

I love Kairi and I missed her, but I’ve mourned her, it’s been a year, she doesn’t know what does or doesn’t work for me anymore. Lea, however does. 

“Can I ask why?” Skuld lifts an eyebrow.

“It’s whatever Lea wants.” I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter.” 

Skuld’s eyes are snake-like slits as she looks at me, pushing herself up off the counter a bit.

“Isa said you weren’t really the obedient type.” She says, I bark out a laugh, so does Lea.

“Oh shnookums, that’s all you said about me?” I giggle, leaning forward to pinch Isa’s cheeks. He swats my hand away.

“Naturally, I’m not trying to cause any more issues than there already are, dove.” He rolls his eyes.

“But that was like such a compliment from you.” I cackle.

“You’re becoming increasingly more obnoxious.”

“Okay, that sounds a lot more like the Isa we know and love.” Lea’s lips pull into a smirk.

“Can you make an underhanded comment about me being a whore? I just feel so distressed without that.” I laugh.

“Or we can get back to the questions.” Xion laughs, quite pleased at the way Isa and I are poking not too terribly hard at each other. Kairi is hella thrown off, a direct opposition to Xion’s elation. 

“I was wondering what happened to the data world?” Mickey asks. “If the data was stable, you all should’ve been able to stay in there for...well, gosh, a long time.”

“It wasn’t stable.” Skuld explains. “Do you remember? Watching everything fall apart?” Her eyes flick over to where Ventus sits, staring at the ground.

“Yeah.” Ven nods. “All of the glitches, and the snow.” 

“Yeah.” And Skuld smiles at the mention of the snow, before licking her lips again. Her eyes are downcast once more, wistful, broken. “The Master of Masters had some sort of plan, he picked out people he wanted to join the Dandelions. But one of the Foretellers, Master Ava, switched things up, she was trying to change the world’s fate.”

“And you trusted her?” Naminé asks, lacing her fingers through each other. Eyes fall on her and she curls in on herself, making a massive effort to disappear. “We know so little about these people, is all.” She says, quickly.

“Master Ava, yes. Always.” Skuld nods. “I’m not really sure what any of them are, the Foretellers. Luxu made it clear though that they weren’t human, but Master Ava cared about humanity, about being sure that we could carry on.” She toys with the ends of her hair, picking at splits, again, trying to displace a little, and at this point it’s unnerving and I’m dissecting my own mannerisms in my mind. Do I pick at my hair that much? Do I chew on my lips as obsessively? “I’m not sure if her actions caused the glitch, or if it was something else, but we saw little moments we weren’t supposed to, interactions between the Foretellers, scenes from the past. Our friend Lauriam, he saw his sister’s death, it broke him, it broke our group apart and at the same time, the data collapsed. We barely scrambled to safety, and even that was….well, it wasn’t as safe as we had hoped.”

“Those pods…” Ven recalls, and as he begins to, so do I. A whole mess of children, struggling to get to some sort of ark, struggling and clinging to each other. Tears and frustration. Larxene and Marluxia. Demyx, Ventus and…

And a boy who conjures a time spell, a card embellished Keyblade raised above his head, his blue eyes hard and set and fucking scared. 

The face is different, there’s something too young and too soft about the boy, but his eyes are the same.

“Luxord.” My voice shakes, my breath catches in my throat as Skuld and Ventus take turns recanting what I’ve already seen through Ventus’ memories. 

I snap up, springing to my feet, scrubbing hands through my hair. I let him go. I let him go when he faded in the Keyblade Graveyard, I owe myself to not get involved in his self serving immorality, I deserve better than to twine myself through the noose that his friendship has become. There are plenty of intelligent people, there are plenty of clever people, there are plenty of charming people, so why the fuck am I so invested in fucking Luxord, who always lets me down?

Why am I getting my hopes up over a memory?

“Rueki?” Kairi mutters, but I shake my head.

“What about him, sweetheart?” Lea asks, but I look up at Skuld, face probably some delightful little combination of nauseous and miserable. 

“He’s not your friend anymore. Or anyone’s. That boy who sent you forward in time. I’m sorry, all I’ve given you is shit news.” I say in a low voice, taking what I hope is a gentle step forward. Skuld flinches, but to her credit, this time she braces herself, hands gripping the edge of the countertop. Her shoulders are tense, her nostrils are flared and I watch her eyes dart back and forth, considering me, assessing me, really genuinely contemplating everything about me and then she seems to remember that this is an actual conversation she needs to participate in.

“What are you talking about? How do you know who he is?” She asks. Her turn.

“Shoot.” Ven mutters. “You were friends with them, weren’t you? When you were in the Organization?” And there goes any control I had, spilling over. Or maybe somewhere along the line someone filled him in, I don’t know, but I’m not processing properly. 

“Is someone going to explain what’s going on?” Lea running a hand back through his hair.

“Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia and Larxene were there.” Ven explains. “Marluxia was a Union Leader with Skuld and I. Luxord was the one who sent us forward in time when everything...when the data…”

No one rushes to my rescue. Not actually a big deal, considering I’m more of a mess than is appropriate to ask my friends to deal with. Not a big deal at all, this isn’t a thing, I can pull myself the fuck together. I can speak like a damn adult, I don’t need to sit here and feel judgement radiating off of anyone and soak in the shame associated with it. 

“Jeez.” Sora blurts.

“Of course they all go conveniently missing after the war.” Lea shakes his head, like he can’t possibly understand why this bothers me, and I guess he shouldn't have to be dealing with this, because I am adamantly over Luxord’s bullshit. I’m not attached to Marluxia or Larxene and Demyx could legit be anywhere. This isn’t a death sentance, I need to get the fuck out of my own head. 

“Well, we only know for sure about Demyx going missing.” Riku pipes up.

“No.” I shake my head. “No, I don’t think it’s as simple as that.” Or maybe it is. Maybe he took me seriously when I told him this was the last time we were doing this dance and that our friendship was toxic and that he had no business coming and finding me in this life. Maybe someone should take me seriously when I throw my hands up and quit. Maybe I could learn to stop doing it when I don’t mean it.

But this time is different, I tell myself, this time I do mean it. I really mean it.

I don’t take the same comfort in the cold countertops as Skuld does, but I do focus on how smooth they feel beneath my palms, on the way patterns bleed and blur artistically upon them. 

“Who’s Luxord?” Del asks, from where he’s perched on the arm of the sofa. 

“A friend of Rueki’s.” Lea explains as I trace lines across the counter top.

“Not really.” I say. Not unless it was convenient for him, not unless it absolved him of something. 

“We knew him as Ludor.” Ven says and I feel the weight of this name, as heavy as remembering Lea and Isa’s true names in my heart. 

Lauriam must be Marluxia. Who were the others? If Luxord was once someone just and good, then who were Larxene and Demyx?

“I’m sorry. I know he was your friend at one point, but if there was any sense of justice alive in him ever, it’s gone.”

“Then you don’t really know him. Ludor refused to join the Dandelions because he didn’t think it was fair to leave behind any of his friends who weren’t offered the same.” Skuld protests, mouth twisted.

“Wait, what is this about Luxord and time travel, seriously you two, not everyone has an empathy link.” Kairi protests. Skuld blinks, pushing herself up a little further.

“A what?” She chokes.

“An empathy link.” Naminé answers in her breathy little voice. “It’s magic from your time, isn’t it.” And probably an answer to Naminé about the source of her power. Skuld doesn’t answer though, just looks at me as though I’ve grown a second head.

“With Ven?” She asks and when I don’t answer, she grows louder. “You have an empathy link with Ven? How the hell did you even learn how to do that?”

“No, with Sora. Ven’s just lived in his heart for a while. Xion and Roxas too. And I didn’t,Naminé gave it to me.” I wave a hand over at the younger blonde, who looks like she wants to shrink down to the size of an ant.

“My goal was only to help Rueki understand the importance of Sora’s life, and those that were endangering his. Even I don’t know much about my powers.” She explains.

“Well, you’re damn lucky you didn’t kill any of them.” Skuld grumbles, shaking her head. 

“What do you know about them, no one seems to know anything.” I confess, hoping she’s got something for me, anything really, would be nice. 

“I know that they’re dangerous. You realize that connecting your hearts means one of you is going to absorb more darkness than the other. If one of your hearts can’t take the pain of something, they’re just going to shuttle it around. Everything that happens to any of you is toxic to the other.” Skuld sighs. Eyes fall on me and I pout. With every bit of a voice I have, I think ‘thanks guys, for seeing that bus and thinking I’d look nice under it’. Fucking nosey ass teenagers. “It’s you then? You’re the one that takes it?”

“Frequently.” Isa says. I grab a bowl off the counter, whip around and chuck it at him. His reactions are better than Del’s but the bowl shatters satisfactorily against the hardwood. Lea glares.

“I liked that bowl.” He says.

“Then tame your fucking werewolf.” I snap. “I’ll buy you a new one.” Skuld’s eyes are liquid gold when I look back to them, molten, enticing, I get the distinct feeling that she’s got so much she wants to say but doesn’t even know where to begin, and I get this in the strangest of ways. The tension, the thickness in the air between the two of us. “I’m sorry. About Ludor.” I tell her. She rolls her eyes.

“He wouldn’t change just like that.” She says quickly, irritably, angular jaw clenching. But as seconds tick by and our friends begin to chatter amongst themselves, her gaze softens a little again. “I really want to hate you.” 

The level of candid she is with me has me laughing this empty, uncomfortable little sound, and she makes the same noise and then we both shut our mouths.

“You can.” I tell her. “You wouldn’t be the first person ever.” 

“You hate you more.” She shrugs and turns to stare out one of the massive open windows of the kitchen.

“You know, my friends are more in the business of bullshitting me, if you wouldn't mind sticking to the status quo.” I scoff, she snorts a little, smirk pulling at the edges of her lips.

“I can tell you’re trying, Isa and Lea and Ven have all told me lots about you.” She says. “What you’ve been through, who you’ve lost, what you’ll give for your friends. I think you’ve kind of got a bad attitude on you, but you clearly want me to feel comfortable. You clearly will do anything for Lea.”

“There’s a but here somewhere.” I predict. She shrugs again, and I think there’s something divine about the way her hair engulfs her frail shoulders. 

“I listened to Luxu talk about you for the past thirteen years.” The significance of that number isn’t lost on me. 

“I barely knew him.” I offer, though it means nothing between the two of us. “I’m not what he thinks I’m going to be. Isa was right, I’m not exactly the cooperative type. But don’t tell him I said he was right, being nasty to each other is part of our friendship.”

“He said you weren’t friends.” Skuld wrinkles her nose. “He really doesn’t like you very much.”

“And I killed him once, we don’t take this shit personally, him and I.” I wave a hand. She blanches and I remember that not everyone is as thoroughly distorted as me, Isa and Lea are. But to her credit, Skuld does chuckle a little. 

“Well, he did say you two were quite unkind to each other.” She admits. “It sounds like it’s been a long run.”

“Yeah, well you know how that goes.” I offer. She drags her teeth across her lower lip and I’m not quite sure how I feel about the similarities in our gestures, but I wonder if abuse looks the same on everyone. Surely being locked away by someone who has gone by the name Ansem at some point has got to count for something. “I do want to know what he’s got planned. Luxu that is…” It repulses me to call him by that name, but I doubt Skuld would understand the weirdness I feel about names and the dignity they grant. “But I think what I want to know more is what you think about how we take them down. Ven doesn’t remember everything, but he does remember the hurt. I don’t think anyone in this room can handle losing friends and loved ones again. There’s been too much of that already. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do all of this, but I need someone to help me beat him into the dirt. I think you’d probably get hella satisfaction out of that.”

“Ouch! The attitude. Now that’s a far cry from begging me not to go anywhere in the Keyblade Graveyard!”

My heart leaps up into my throat, twisted and tangled, snatching my breath. My face goes hot, growing a heartbeat of its own as I search the room, mortified to take a breath. There is no trace of shadows, no lingering remnants of anything I can reach out and slash at, and yet, I’m certain I heard his voice clear as day. 

Skuld doesn’t react, instead, she seems frozen in time, picturesque as she stares out the window. All of my friends are statues, the room crackles with static, hazy and muted, not on the level I’m on. I reach out toward the woman across from me and pass straight through her. 

“What the hell is this?” I ask, half expecting someone to come over and tell me I’m hallucinating. Instead, I hear Xigbar’s laughter, a phantom embodiment of my own guilt echoing around my head. “How did you drop me into sleep?”

“Oh I didn’t.” Xigbar snorts. “Not that I’m complaining, kiddo, but whatever’s happening here, your heart reached out for. You just thirsty for this girl’s approval or did you miss me?”

“Get fucked.” I huff. “Miss you, what a fucking joke. You baited me. You manipulated me for years. You have treated everyone in this room with the same courtesy as costume jewelry and you even want to make jokes about me wanting you around?” I balk. “The only thing I missed was my opportunity to actually fucking end you in the Graveyard.”

“Right, what was it Axel said? I’m your soft spot or something? Ha, do you need his permission to even be having this little chat with me.?”

“Fuck you. That wasn’t yours, you aren’t part of the conversations I have, you’re nothing to me.” I shake my head.

“But I’m here oh so easily.” He reminds me.

“I don’t know what you think I’m capable of. Every time you’ve ended up in my heart, you’ve reached out for me.” I seethe, dripping in frustration, eyes searching anywhere, for where he might be, for where I can target him. 

“And hey, you’re right. This is different.” He agrees. “You can stop trying to be so animous, you know. Be a hell of a lot less exhausting than you trying to seduce this girl to be your little buddy. You’re so damn tired and so sick of the war, you know how to end that? Do what you were made for. Power’s in your hands, little Rueki.”

“To meet the light’s endless demand or in the darkness, watch them fall. Sounds like I have options.” I twitch, fists tightening to the point I feel my tendons drawn. 

“Sure.” Is his reply. “If you think you’ve got it in you.”

“Well aren’t I only fun with a bite?” I hiss and he chuckles again.

“Well aren’t you sweet, making sure I enjoy myself?” He asks.

“You’re a narcissist. And a psychopath.” 

“And you’re the one lying to yourself.” I can all but feel him shrugging, slick as ever. 

“Does that make you feel good, pretending that you know me? That however long you’ve watched me counts as anything other than creepy? Because it doesn’t, you’re absolutely repulsive.” My lips curl over my teeth, though whether he can see me or if he can only hear me, I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. He wants a bite, I want him to feel it. Into his bones, into his organs, into the deepest parts of heart.

“Your mom did the same thing when she was pissed, you know? Acted a lot like you did. Threw things, and projected like the best of them.” He leers.

“I’m not projecting, you’re just disgusting.” I say, with hatred that could sink the stars straight from the sky. 

“And you’re a sad, lonely little girl who can’t see things coming together right in front of her own eyes.” He counters. “Hell, you’re even sadder when you’re taking orders from Axel. I mean, do you even learn from mistakes, or do you like running into walls again and again?”

“Go to hell.” I hiss. “This is what it looks like, so you know, when there are people that love you keeping you on track. That’s what love looks like. Not manipulation, not scheming, not lying.”

“Oh, I never lied to you. Say what you want, but I’ve been more honest than your husband ever has to you.” Xigbar tries. Fucking smarmy piece of shit.

“Funny then, that I’ll let him lead me into anything and when this is done, when you fail, because you will, you will never cross my mind again.” I insist.

“Like I never crossed your mind this year? Like you never thought about me once?”

I don’t know how he knows, about my hesitation, about sleeping in the woods and getting up to draw that strange sort of transmutation circle and thinking about how very easily I could’ve wound up in his bed and not Axel’s, about how very similar the two were at the start. I don’t know if he’s bluffing, but he wins this move, knocks a piece off my side of the board and he knows it, he chuckles.

“Right. Well, you look good playing the hero, but when you’re sick of wearing a leash or getting information from unreliable little girls with grudges against me, give me a call, little Rueki. Since it comes so easily to you.”

“You can rot, whatever destiny you’re convinced is going to happen, you forgot to take the fact that I’m not your doll into account.”

I don’t know when time begins to move again, but it does, because every bit of progress I’ve made with Skuld has completely disappeared and she’s now looking at me the way one might regard an escaped maniac. Except possibly more dangerous.

“Um…” She starts. 

“Trying to decide what I’ll say to him. You can’t be married to Lea without picking up a flair for dramatics.” The words leave my mouth with such confidence that even I’m impressed and I try not to act like I’m holding my breath, hoping against all hope for her approval. Xigbar can get fucked, I’m not thirsty for anyone’s validation.

I’m allowed to want to be friends with this cute woman who is friends with my friends, and I’m allowed to not want to turn into a piece of shit.

I’m fine and I’m normal, and maybe for the first time, I’m on a path that doesn’t involve losing my mind. 

“I guess that’s fair.” She says, though she doesn’t look as convinced as I like. “You know, I can see how hard you’re trying, you’re not a piece of garbage, as much as I want you to be.”

“I am.” I correct quickly, like nothing is going wrong, like I don’t feel the creeping remnants of Xigbar in the back of my head, like claws that have left puncture marks. “But I am trying. And if you know the prophecy, I wouldn’t be opposed to some help not becoming everything he wants me to be.”

Skuld looks me over, tucking her hand beneath her chin.

“It’s not so cut and dry. He didn’t tell me you were going to follow some sort of equation that leads you straight to hell.” She replies, a bit nervously.

“And I’m not just an alchemist. I’m good with magic, I’m figuring out the whole finesse thing.” I offer. She smiles a tiny bit.

“Isa said you’re the one to beat when it comes to speed based attacks.” Apparently Isa has said a lot of things about me, and I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t expect it. “We could get to training. And maybe we go over some ways that someone who knows a little more thinks you could stay out of Luxu’s plan.”

“Whenever you’re ready, the backyard is too.” I offer.

“You know, too accommodating is exactly what Luxu needs.” She says, though her tone is so serious, I wonder whether or not she’s actually joking. 

I bite my lips, she does the same.

“Well, if I bend over for him, I promise you, you can personally jam your Keyblade into my skull.”


	13. Chapter 13

XII.

La Luxure curls as nicely through my fingers as ever. Wind ruffles my hair, ruffles the tendrils of the scarf I wear around my waist, and I look my opponents in their eyes. Green, gold, green, like a pattern. 

I grin at Lea across the field from me, standing in one corner with Del and Skuld in the others. Because it’s hilarious, apparently, to force anyone who leans a little too heavily on speed, to go up against each other.

Two days ago, Mickey, Donald and Goofy decided to return to their Kingdom. The former of the trio missing their respective spouses, and the latter coming to the logical and humble conclusion that not much more could be done in the way of research. I mean, we can all keep trying, it’s not like we aren’t. But enough serial killer spreadsheets have decorated mine and Lea’s house for one lifetime, and no matter how much we read, and how many times Ven and Skuld clarify the difference between fact and fiction, there’s only so much progress we can make. And every bit of intellectual progress is a reminder how atrophied all of our muscles are.

Yesterday, Ven, Terra and Aqua headed out for the land of departure, because Aqua was certain they could find answers to something within their home world. Ven protested, still convinced he’d miss out on something massively important if he was forced back home, but with a little bit of promising from me that I wouldn’t keep him out of the loop and a lot of assurance from Aqua that she trusts his judgement, he was finally sueded back home.

The house feels majorly less crowded with me, Lea, Isa, Skuld, Roxas, Xion, Del, Amaya, Lucidia, Sora, Riku, Kairi and Naminé cluttering it. It’s still crowded as hell, but, you know, less miserable. 

And now that the cats are away, the mice are content to play. Kairi suggested immediately that we cast the books aside and start training. Skuld looked mildly like she could cry in relief. Sora did. So despite Riku still attempting to pluck through a tomme that he hardly understands, even he agreed to bend.

And now, with only a new scar on his upper lip--which does make him look delightful, Riku has grown into a straight up snack, fuck me--he has successfully defeated both Isa and Roxas. Not an easy feat for anyone, I think. Roxas was salty as he skulked back to Xion, muttering something about breaking Riku’s arm again, but to her grace, Xion swatted him and told him to behave before promptly kissing him on the cheek. 

And now here I am, part of the second battle of the day, and I’m shocked by how quickly my brain returns to an old pattern of thinking. Del brandishes his Keyblade--a silver, mid ranged sword with a flared handle and flared orange accents to match. Two chunky brown teeth protrude from the front side of it, clunky and rudimentary looking, but not unlike something that would remind me of home, the sword looks distinctly Al-Bhed crafted but the studs that line the length of the blade and the keychain, a ball of bright green light, cast a style of their own--with determination, but his footing is absolute shit. He’s not pigeon toed, why is he standing like he is, and who the fuck taught him that was okay? I cast a bit of side eye at Kairi, who is chatting with Xion and Sora, who she’ll be slated to fight against after this match, and wonder if everything I lectured her on, in regards to footing went in one ear and right out the other, I mean come on, she should’ve corrected that while they were on their quest. Lea, well, Lea is stronger than me, and Lea has speed on his side of course too, but Lea has a very obvious aversion to any sort of blizzard magic; nasty as it is, I know how to beat him. As for Skuld, she’s an enigma to me, in personality and in fighting style. She wields her Keyblade--a periwinkle and gold sword with a star shaped blade-- with two hands and the type of comfort and confidence I have never seen in any Keybearer. Not Sora, not Riku, not even Aqua or Mickey. Skuld doesn’t have a sword, she has an extension of her hands, but she not only hasn’t fought in forever, she’s coming back from being at a physical disadvantage.

It’s amazing how easily I can dissect weaknesses after all this time.

You were made for these sorts of things.

I flinch, half expecting time to freeze around me and for Xigbar to come trickling in. But instead, Del still keeps shifting his foot from one ill balanced position to another, and what happened last week proves to be nothing more than a fluke. Whatever Xigbar wants to believe, I didn’t call him in and I’m taking every action I possibly can to keep any and everything out right now. Now, when I’m fragile, now, when every single day I can feel Skuld picking apart my behavior, contemplating the reality of my morality. After all, I’m only as good as she says I am.

And right now, she says a hell of a lot of nothing, because impatient, impervious Del comes barreling at me, Keyblade pulled back like a baseball bat, letting out the most ridiculous battle cry.

Both Naminé and Amaya, who are moderating this match must absolutely be dying. I would be, if I wasn’t rolling my eyes and stepping aside, foot cranked out to trip him. And Del does skid, but apparently there’s something in the water in Transmute City that teaches kids how to take a hit like a fucking champ. Del face plants straight into the dirt, but as I spring at Lea, Knuckles drawn back, Del jumps to his feet and my attack on my husband is cut short, to duck a hit from my ex. Pissed as all hell, I drop La Luxure, plant one foot and whirl the other in a kick, knocking Del straight onto his ass again. Lea’s Keyblade pounds straight down at me, and I have exactly enough time to pull my forearm above my head and block shoddily. I feel the ache and the heat reverberating into my bones as I brace against him and push up.

“Dick!” I bite, straining against his blow, the muscles in my shoulders tight as I work against him. Del brushes dirt off his face, I’m still struggling against Lea, and I just do the one thing I think I can, the only thing to ward these two fuck heads off. I visualize La Luxure in my hands and count my blessings. I toss one blade straight at Del and it rips through his shoulder.

I hate the sound of his screaming, but Del crumbles to his knees. 

The other blade is still laced through the hand bracing Lea’s attack. My eyes meet his, I wrinkle my nose. His eyes widen.

“You’re the dick--” He chokes.

“Blizzaza.” Fast as Lea is, I anticipate his teleportation and toss my frozen blades straight at where he appears half way across the field.

As sick as Del’s scream makes me, immediate panic snatches me by the throat as I hear Lea’s whimper. No, no, please be okay. Please don’t make that noise ever again, please don’t take him from me-

A dark pang floods my mind, very broken blue eyes, looking absently at me? At somebody?

‘Please, if you know where she is, if you have anything...I...I’m on my last leg, I’ve no pride left. Just please...you’re the one who took her place, you have to tell me, where is Strelitzia?’

Marluxia’s voice is a roar in my ears, drowning out my other senses. 

In fact, were it not for Skuld smacking me across the face with the flat of her blade, I’m not sure I could pull myself out from inside my own heart. My head jerks back, so hard that I hit the dirt, black spotting at the edges of my vision. I feel like I’m drowning and turn aside to spit out a mouthful of blood, which pools in the ground beside me.

Well, that’s a lot. I might be missing a tooth, that might be a thing. 

Lea looks nauseous as he rises, across the field from me, it must be horrifying, watching blood trickle out of your spouse’s mouth, but I’m actually thankful.

What the fresh fuck was that in my mind? Something Ven is remembering, probably? But I’ve never been able to reach him across worlds, in fact, there was once a time I couldn’t reach him at all. 

“Rueks?” Lea’s voice is a breath in front of me. Del is on the sidelines now, with Naminé pulling my Knuckles out of his shoulder, watching just as intently, despite the small girl yanking a weapon out of him. In fact, for as much as I razz Del for being a flighty idiot, this is clearly working in his favor if he recovers from being impaled so easily and has the good sense to know when he should count himself as down.

“Are you fragile?” Skuld’s question is matter of fact, but I hear it as a challenge and it zings all the way to my toes, the same adrenaline rush as arousal. As dark magic. I run my tongue across my bloody teeth and grin at her.

“Not at all.” And I leap to my feet, one Knuckle soaring from the ground beside Lea, one flying straight out of Del, still bloody as it coats my hand. The smile that lights Skuld’s face is massive. She smashes her blade into me, I fall back crossing my Knuckles in an ‘X’.

She does rely on speed, obviously so though, because she doesn’t try to beat into me, instead, she pulls her blade back, whirls it in one hand and jabs at my abdomen. I can’t dodge, but I can loop my leg through hers and pull her down with me. We fold, crumbling like dominoes onto one another, her cheek smashing into my shoulder. Skuld staggers, trying to climb back to her feet, but where she is lawful and clean, I’m an absolute piece of filth. I grab her wrist and yank her back down to climb to my feet. The noise she lets out in protest is high and frustrated, she becomes a grapply little monster as I skid back, heart a hummingbird in my pulse points. I’m barely recovering when she and Lea both rush me, the two of them already on the high ground thanks to their height alone.

I shouldn’t try it. I’m out of shape, this is a losing battle. But--

But there’s a burning in both of their eyes that brings a storm to life inside of me. I leap, high, catching the tip of Skuld’s blade. It pierces my boot, pushing at my foot, but it grants me just enough momentum to snare my arms around Lea’s neck and legs around his waist.

“Sorry.” I whisper, but don’t hesitate. “Waterza!”

The effect isn’t nearly as harsh as it would be using an ice spell on him, but Lea’s eyes immediately blow out, his pupils turning into little pinpricks in his sockets. He turns into complete dead weight as I tumble off of him. He’s a choking, wheezing, spasming mess on all fours coughing up lungful after lungful of water, and as miserable as it is to watch, if I look away, I find myself invigorated, soothed by the healing magic of the neutral water spell. Lea will recover, I remind myself. And without him roaring out like a wounded animal, screaming like he did when he exerted himself in Betwixt and Between, it is easier to believe. My hands tingle as I slide back through the dirt, eyes narrowed and on Skuld. 

Amaya tugs at Lea’s sleeve and beckons him off the field. He protests, but follows her. My lungs scream with each rise and fall of my shoulders, and this whole damn occasion has my muscles whining, sobbing, begging for rest. But hell, do I miss the callouses that La Luxure crafted on my hands and it does feel brilliant to flex this, to show off a little, to be someone that means something.

To be someone who can defend my friends.

Another dark pang and I’m alone. The room is black and bleak and it’s just me and this darkness that sits on my shoulders. I watch everyone, I watch children run around and play, I watch kids make friends, form groups, they’re always smiling, warm and glowing even on the outside as they gather light and banish the darkness. But not mine, never mine. Instead, it grows heavier, angrier, sentient. Why should they be so joyous and not I? Why, when I too was blessed with the Keyblade, when I was offered this vibrant light, why should it not warm me from within as well? 

Why should I not reach out and take what is rightfully mine, what could possibly be wrong with seizing my crowning right?

These thoughts and memories feel increasingly less like Ven’s. In fact, as I blink back toward reality, I realize they absolutely cannot belong to the sunny boy I know, to my would be Prince Charming. Ven is human and Ven once had darkness in his heart, but there is no reality that could possibly exist where Ven is this twisted, this vindictive. A dark fear clenches around me that I brutally shove away. 

I convince myself that this isn’t even a possibility and I won’t honor it as such. 

Instead, I focus on an actual threat, on a real, tangible problem at hand. 

I take a deep breath, Skuld rolls her shoulders back and I use the glistening gold in her eyes as a focal point. I roll my ankle in the dirt, trying as hard as I can not to look down at my work. 

“Wanna go shopping after this?” I ask her, trying to quell my hammering pulse. She looks at me like ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’ and rolls her eyes.

It doesn’t need to be perfect, it doesn’t need to be fancy.

“That’s what you’re doing? Sarcasm isn’t going to beat a Foreteller!” She lectures. This is what it looks like, I guess, when justice is used as a coping mechanism, and not shitty, distracting humor. “It’s sure not going to shake Luxu off of you, are you honestly not taking this fight seriously?”

“No, I’m just stalling.” And with that, I throw two Hi-Potions onto the half assed circle I trace in the dirt and dip low, knees smacking the ground as my hands hit the edges of the circle. I glow, skin taking on a highlighted vibrancy as my torn out energy and the chronic replenishing of a Vitality swirl in the air, up into my fingertips, in my veins. It’s hardly got the extra juice a Hero Drink would have, but it sure doesn’t have the comedown either. 

Now able to ignore the screaming in my shoulders and the aching in my calves, I leap toward Skuld, fist cranked back. She pulls her Keyblade back and, unable to react as quick as me, she’s forced to parry, attack after attack after attack. A barrage of my fists rain down on her and I’m amazed and enamored at the speed my own hands move. I land a blow, she flinches, she deflects one, I recover.

It’s a game, it’s a dance, we move around the field, chasing each other, her eyes flicking rapidly as she watches and knocks aside an impressive amount of blows.

I feel the energy trickle out of me, feel the screaming in my fists as the holes of the Knuckles dig into my skin, feel the taxation on my arms with each move.

A pang.

A dark warehouse. Bright eyes. Pleading, begging.

The little blonde girl looks so small, the way she cowers, the way she whimpers and cries to be left alone, because what she’s after right now is so important.

I have never felt so big, my bones seem to grow, my hands look so massive as I raise my blade.

I shake my head, pinching my eyes shut as I struggle to move, to breathe, to clear my mind. 

Stop. Get the fuck out. This isn’t my head. I don’t want this.

I make a move to throw myself at Skuld, a last ditch effort to overwhelm and maybe take her down with a bit of magic or a bit of alchemy or a bit of something that carries an edge.

Instead, Skuld pulls a hail Mary, whips around and sends her blade straight into the same spot in my ribs that the Shark Noise destroyed years ago.

I wish I didn’t crumple so easily, more blood spills from my lips and I’m a mess trying to wipe it away. I’m not sure if it’s inappropriate to female solidarity that I’m embarrassed the girl kept in a cell has thoroughly beaten my ass, but I guess the fact that the two of us made it this far has to count for something. Me the jack of all trades, ace of none and her the opposite. 

I grunt, pushing myself up onto my knees, letting La Luxure clatter to the ground. My eyes flick up to Skuld’s. She cocks her head to the side and offers me a tiny smile before extending a hand.

“I wish you weren’t so good at alchemy.” She says, I snort and take her hand with the one that hasn’t been wiping blood off of me so constantly.

“I’m pretty medium at most things. I wish you weren’t good with that fucking Keyblade, dude, you’re on it.” I insist and she just sort of shrugs as she pulls me to my feet, which is about the least satisfying compliment I’ve ever given anyone. Fuck, she could at least pretend she’s interested in my approval. 

“Just comfortable is all.” She says and we are promptly torn apart as Lea and Isa sweep in, Lea scooping up and hoisting Skuld onto his shoulders.

My face turns the temperature of the sun and Isa notices, oh he fucking notices.

I wait for a comment about how dark it feels, not being the center of Lea’s world, but said comment never comes. Isa, I guess, is the bigger person. Maybe that’s what a five year age difference is supposed to look like.

“What the hell!” Lea laughs. “No one told us you were that good with a Keyblade!” 

An angry--and very green--monster comes to life inside of me and wants to tear the skin right off of both Lea and Skuld. I taste bile. 

Kairi chirps to my side, Del too, who is clutching his shoulder, followed by Naminé.

“Hey, anyone ever tell you that friends don’t stab friends in the shoulder?” Del laughs.

“That’s not how friendship with Rueki works.” Kairi giggles and I want to tell them both to shut the fuck up because Del doesn’t know what war looks like and Kairi doesn’t know what supporting me looks like anymore, but by chomping my teeth down on my lower lip, I stop something from pouring out that I don’t mean in the first place.

My head is woozy. This jealousy, this hatred, is literally going to come scratching and clawing straight out of me and it doesn’t particularly care what type of way it shreds my insides to do so. It wants out, it wants everyone who has ever--

It’s so dark.

Pang, pang, pang. 

It knocks at the back of my head, at the forefront of my heart.

“Rueki.” Naminé’s voice is breathless beside me, her eyes huge and horrified and I know why, because I have already made a memory of my own wickedness and I’m sure it’s quite frightening, even to a child who has already been through hell and dehumanized a thousand times over. “You’re right, you have every reason to be concerned about what’s going on in your heart, it shouldn’t be possible.”

“Nothing’s wrong, I can stave it off, Nam.” I nearly growl.

“You shouldn’t have to, that’s the point, something’s wrong, he didn’t spend time in Sora’s heart.” She whispers and I want to shriek. She’s only reading my feelings, I remind myself, she’s only searching my memories, there’s no confirmation of anything, she doesn’t know for sure and more to the point, she can’t. She’s a powerful Nobody, but not inhuman.

“He did in Ven’s and Ven spent time in Sora’s, it’s not a big deal.” I shake my head, wanting nothing more than to rest it, as it throbs, in my hand. “Besides, it’s probably just Ven’s memories, the timeline makes sense, they weren’t seperate beings then, it’s fine. It’s nothing.” I’m just a cunt and just pissed at my husband and his pretty new friend and anyone I’ve ever been friends with because all I’m good for is isolating. 

This is me, this is my fault.

“Rueki, what’s wrong?” Kairi asks.

“Nothing, just got the piss beaten outta me.” I say, running my tongue across my teeth, feeling for them, which all appear to still be there, surprisingly. “No permanent damage.”

“Course not, cuz my girl is damn near indestructible.” Despite Skuld being on his shoulders still, Lea manages to swoop over to me, tuck a finger beneath my chin and tilt my head up just enough so that he can press his lips to mine. It’s just enough to take the edge off, just enough warmth to make me feel alright, reflexively, my hands bunch at his shirt. Green eyes flick to mine, he gives me just enough of a smile that if my head wasn’t still screaming and my insides weren’t being mutilated, I might melt. “Kicked my ass like the best of them.” He praises, kissing me again. 

All I had to do was ask, I remind myself. All I had to do was just imply that I needed more, that I need to be drowned in affections, and he’d happily indulge me. Lea is good, and kind and warm, too perfect for me, he wants so bad to not let me crumble that he’d break his own bones to assure it.

Maybe that’s why I can’t bring myself to use my words.

Maybe it’s because my eyes are still swimming and vision begins to come in and out.

Maybe nothing is right, maybe nothing is well, maybe I’m too far gone for anything to matter, maybe I’m the problem and it’s killing my friends and everyone I love.

Maybe I’m the cancer, the toxin, the virus.

Pang, pang, pang.

Darkness washes across every square inch of me within that warehouse. I take my blade, raise it high. She’s soft, warm, made of flesh and blood and bone.

My blade rips right through her.

I don’t know if my scream or another jolts me back, but I’m hardly in reality. 

I’m writhing, quaking through the darkness I was born in. I hear voices, but don’t see faces. I see blackness, golden eyes, animalistic creatures, hellbent on seizing any light they can.

A hooded figure regards me, Xigbar’s very familiar voice floods my heart and mind.

But not mine. 

“Wakey wakey, Vani.”


	14. Chapter 14

XIII.

I pray that none of the hearts attached to mine have to stomach these memories.

Lying on the couch, eyes pinched shut with too many sets of eyes on me and too many hands trying to reach out to comfort, I long to cast them all aside. The sheer process of taking these memories, costs everything I have and then some. Physically, it is excruciating,drowning in lifetimes of dark. Mentally, it is shattering.

Instead of crumbling or weeping, I pinch my damn eyes shut, bite my tongue and pretend to be out cold. Because there is no way this level of toxicity can do anything but surge into a violent head if I react. If I am a channel, I can turn him down, dial him in, focus every bit of Vanitas’ blackness inward and boot my friends out.

“Can you take the empathy link away?” I hear Kairi’s voice ask.

“If only it were that simple. I’ve tried, but the pathways aren’t as easy to shut off as they are to open up.” Naminé murmurs. “And I think she’s creating more.”

“Do you even realize how irresponsible that is? You threw someone’s heart into the ring without even knowing what the consequences could look like! If this boy is the embodiment of darkness, he could kill her!” I think that Skuld snapping at Naminé in my defense should be flattering, but I’m a lot more focused on the reality that this darkness could kill me. That this fading in and out really feels like anchors around my ankles and wrists and this could actually be it. Vanitas could finally be the thing to drag me under.

Stupid fucker isn’t even here for me to punch.

“There’s no way she could’ve prepared for something like this to happen to Rueki, don’t talk to her like that!” Kairi screams back. Skuld groans. A hot thumb brushes my cheekbone. Lea’s lip lay gently across my forehead. 

“She’s not going anywhere.” Lea says, with so much feeling, with so much insistence that I think I believe him for a minute and then I remember how desperate I am to believe in anything sometimes. “She’s not soft. I’ve seen her straddle darkness. She’ll take it and shove it up Vanitas’ ass and have a smart comment to make when this is all done.”

“Your faith in her is sweet, Lea. But she’s human. We’re all human and we’re going up against immortals, we can’t afford slips like this or weak points this massive.” Skuld protests. “She’s human.” 

“Barely.” Lea mutters, kissing my head again, touching my jaw now, my neck. 

“You’re doing exactly what he is. Luxu. Do you realize this?” Skuld asks.

“He’s gambling on her going dark because he’s fucking thirsty. She’s had every chance in the book to turn her back on light and she hasn’t. Even when I did.” Lea shakes his head against mine and I am warmed from head to toe, deep into my core, despite the chilling. 

“He’s not banking on her going dark, he’s banking on her rejecting it.” Skuld murmurs. The air in the room goes icy cold, stagnant. 

The breath has been drawn from the room, but I’m still the only one in the trenches. 

‘I’m the only one being laughed at, kicked in the ribs and taunted by Xehanort, reminded how pathetic my pain is because I am darkness and this is all darkness is meant to amount to. I am the only one destroying my own creations, my own Unversed, biting back screams because it feels as though my heart is being torn to ribbons each time. The old man raises a Keyblade to me and slams the flat of it into me, not enough to do real damage but enough to send me flying, enough to bruise. 

Just enough so he can taunt me for still being too weak. I’m supposed to be better than Ventus, stronger than Ventus. I should rip Ventus limb from limb, break him down, reduce him to less than me. Less than I have ever been, that will please the old man, that will grant me repreve, that will stop all this ache that I just keep mustering up in the form of Un--’

This isn’t me, I have to remind myself. This is Vanitas, screaming and clawing and tearing his way through my consciousness, desperate to be heard, whether he knows he is or not. He needs to fill every empty space, every bit of quiet, to be so much bigger than his frame, bigger than himself so that nothing can puncture him again.

“What do you mean reject the dark? Isn’t that the ideal?” Isa asks, in a soft, deep voice somewhere behind me. 

“The only thing worse than the dark is pretending it can’t exist.” Riku answers. “Dark and light are two sids of the same coin, the world is made up of both. To live in a world without darkness is--”

“Unbalanced.” Kairi whispers. “Sterile, numbing, unsatisfying. The light is precious, darkness always wants to devour it. But you can’t be whole with just the light.” 

“Well the Foretellers don’t want any darkness. We gathered light for ages. I was wondering what they were going to do with it all. To be honest, I had no idea until Luxu got ahold of me. But I think...I think if he’s recruiting someone made of darkness, there’s only one thing they can be planning. They’re not just collecting light anymore. They’re purging darkness, and they need someone who can go to the source.” Skuld says, and she must look at Naminé, because the witch speaks up immediately. 

“I’m not able to confirm that. Vanitas would need to feel it and after he does and Rueki makes it a memory, I could understand.” Naminé says.

“Just what is your power?” Skuld asks.

“Naminé has power over Sora’s memories and the hearts connected to his.” Roxas says.

“So, you know, all of us.” And Xion sounds so smiley as she says that, but the way Skuld humms is the opposite of happy. 

“As I’ve said, I’m not a traditional Nobody. There’s very little anybody can offer me when it comes to information about my own powers.” Naminé explains.

“Ignorance isn’t an excuse for carelessness.” Skuld says flatly, but Naminé laughs a little twinkling laugh.

“That takes a lot of courage to say to someone you don’t know much about.” Naminé covers quickly.

“It doesn’t.” Skuld counters, which, it’s nice to know that she’s not only disagreeable with me. “You’ve spent all of this time thinking things were black and white, and that darkness is the only thing bad and light is the only thing good and that it’s okay to be foolish as long as your heart is in the right spot but that’s so childish. It doesn’t work like that forever. Doing what you think is good doesn’t always mean you’re doing the right thing.” She sounds terribly like Aqua, but without the filter and couth that Aqua might have, and I think that probably makes her cooler.

“It counts for something, all we’re doing is the best with what we have.” Kairi replies, stubbornly. “I’m not saying I disagree with you, if the Foretellers are trying to get rid of the darkness completely that’s just as bad as the light. But you can’t demonize any of us for keeping a crazy old man from destroying the world with darkness. Especially when we wouldn’t have any of this information without you. None of us are psychic.”

“Well, except Rueki. Kind of.” Del mumbles. Kairi must inflict some sort of violence on him because he screams loudly “ouch!”

“She would do it if she were awake.” Kairi replies, snootily. I should be laughing, I should be high fiving her and making a comment about the strength of our bond, but under Vanitas’ weight every last bond is wet tissue paper, coming apart at the seams, when everything should be so reinforced. My friends have gathered around me, even the less affectionate Skuld is leaping to my defense, nothing should be able to penetrate me.

But everything does. Especially these fucking memories that Vanitas pretends to savor because they belong to Ven, and if he can’t break Ven, he has to take him, to absorb him so thoroughly that they, in tandem, become something so much more powerful that they are invincible. That he and they can be one and one can be all.

‘But if poor, poor little Venty Wenty hadn’t moped his life away, too scared of his inner darkness, too scared to infect anyone, too timid to make friends when the roaring need to destroy and dominate couldn’t be tamed in his heart, then things wouldn’t have gotten this far, now would they? He could’ve become a Dandelion all on his own, he wouldn’t have had to stick to being some sad little recluse, dependent on hearing gossip from the shadows. Lady Ava would have chosen him, he wouldn’t have had to chase after that pretty little girl with the strawberry blonde hair and the sea green eyes..

The one who looks so much like that witch that wouldn’t just give up Ven’s location, as if I couldn’t track him myself, as if we weren’t made to follow each other through--’

Not me. Not me. 

“Even if we can’t go back and change the past, we can be smarter in the future.” Riku pipes up, cutting through my thoughts, tearing through Vanitas’ dark. 

“What does the future have in store for us though?” Amaya asks and the room goes heavy, goes quiet.

“You need to hear the prophecy. We all do.” Skuld says.

“Not her.” Lea shakes his head against mine. “There’s just so much on her shoulders, you didn’t know her this past year, I don’t even feel like I did. She was so far gone, it took everything I had to pull her out. I don’t know if I can do it again.”

“I’m sorry.” Kairi whispers. “That’s my fault, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Lea says flatly, bitterness tainting his voice. “But Riku’s right, we can’t change anything. And it’s not like I’m not to blame either. You pushed her off the cliff, but I walked her right to the edge.”

“So you’re just going to shield her from everything because you feel guilty?” As abrasive as she is, Skuld is still softer when she speaks to Lea, which instantly has darkness bubbling, boiling, jealousy scratching out from inside of me.

But is it me or Vanitas, I don’t know?

Spending too much time in Sora’s thoughts undoubtedly drew me to Kairi in the first place, sure. But my feelings, my opinions, I’ve always believed, have stayed relatively neutral in regards to my empathy link, I could only channel someone else’s pleasure or pain if I felt it myself--Sora’s love of Kairi, Roxas’ hate of Ansem the Wise. But with Vanitas? I hardly know what bleeding over belongs to him or me, and the more he screams, pounding at the edges of my heart and mind with a hundred knuckled fist, the more I begin to lose sight of who or what Rueki could be. 

‘This body is just another vessel, just something I can use to slither in, lure Ventus into a safe little lullaby and then press his heart so deep into mine that I never have to be smothered by darkness again.

I’d do anything not to be smothered by darkness again. That’s why I took Xigbar’s offer, not because I can stand being around the fucking Freeshooter. He doesn’t shut the fuck up. I don’t particularly care about who else he still needs to assemble and I don’t understand his weird fucking fixation with that damn girl, but while he’s clearly just some sort of chatty pawn, the guy he’s serving? The Master of Masters? He reeks of old magic and grand abilities. And if he can purge the worlds of darkness like he’s so insistent has been foretold, I can stomach some heavy lifting. I can taunt some former princesses. They’re so fragile without their light, so easy to break, the shadow I cast runs so deep, it’s just so easy to watch their worlds get swallowed up by it.

My darkness, my devourer.’

“She’s my wife. I’m supposed to shoulder some of this weight. She’s done enough.” Lea insists.

“We’ve all done enough, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s more to do.” Riku sighs.

“Fine. Whatever...I just...let me be the one to tell her it, okay? I’ll decide when she’s ready to hear it.” Lea caves, but I’m holding my breath and I’m not sure how he can’t feel it. Is she going to...is Skuld going to break the news?

“Alone the alchemist will stand, and in the twilight hear the call. To meet the light’s endless demand or in the darkness watch them fall. They seal the realm in eternal sleep, binding promises still to keep. The Sigil’s plan, a final turn. If darkness stands, let it burn.” 

It’s like a lullaby that I’ve heard since childhood, it’s a promise kept between friends, it’s a secret that makes my ears ring with pleasure, as though something is finally being fulfilled, as though I’m watching entire constellations shift into place just for me. It’s greedy and egotistical, but she might as well have recited a summary, a eulogy, a song just for me. I feel every single syllable reverberate into my bones and though my first reaction is cynicism--that I’m just looking to mean something to someone and this is sick wish fulfillment--there’s something about this that settles a little deeper, that tastes truer. 

“Lea?” Isa finally asks after a moment of silence. I feel the brush of Lea’s head as he kisses along the side of my arms and shoulders. 

“Sounds like a lot of ifs.” Lea mutters, stubbornly, and he’s right about that but--

“And Rueki is a wildcard. That’s pretty dumb of Xigbar to be betting so much on ifs and maybes.” Kairi agrees.

“But for someone so ruled by laws and order and promises, why wouldn’t the Master of Masters want someone so much like a force of nature on his side?” Naminé asks. “Isn’t that really the greatest power in this realm? The kind we cannot control.” 

“Is that why you linked her to Sora?” Skuld asks.

“Yes.” Naminé says, more sure, more firm than I’ve ever heard her. “She may not be controllable, but above all, Rueki is moral. She is self sacrificing and unbiased and strong. I’m ashamed that the empathy link I gave her is taxing her, but I will not regret betting everything on Rueki.”

“Never.” Roxas agrees. 

“That’s all very good and idealistic, but can you understand Luxu? The way he’s obsessed with this prophecy and the promise that was made to him about her? She’s supposed to be ground breaking for him, and he has waited lifetimes for her. Do you really think that she or anyone can refuse that level of devotion?” Skuld huffs.

“Of course.” Kairi answers at the same time Lea snaps “yes!”

But then there’s fucking Amaya, who knows me better than I want her to, despite the lengths I’ve gone to to ensure otherwise.

“I think Rueki wants to feel good.” Amaya murmurs. “No matter the costs. I think the last hurt was her breaking point. And now she’s going on when she really has no business carrying herself further.” She says. “She’s my friend, of course I want to believe the best in her. But I hadn’t seen Rueki cry until then.”

“Yeah.” I hear Del. “She’s a lot different. Human, fragile.” 

“You can’t hear Vanitas, can you?” Naminé asks, and when Sora, Roxas and Xion respond with a resounding no, I hear her breathe a sigh of relief. “Good, let’s hope Ventus can’t either.”

“Why, is he hurting her?” Xion asks. Naminé doesn’t respond immediately, and speculation stirs. 

Lie, I plead internally, lie for longer. Because I know she knows I’m not unconscious and I know she’s got her mouth shut solely for my benefit, but dammit all, there are far too many who will want to intercede with something they shouldn’t.

Something they couldn’t.

No one will understand this, not like my brother and I--

Not my damn brother. Vanitas. My mind is leaking.

‘Xigbar, if I could’ve found my way into anyone’s clutches, save for Xigbar, I would. Oh, would I ever. And I know to look twice and accept his gifts with a grain of salt. These new, Darkling creatures he has taught me to summon, the instructions he has given me, it’s all the same, exactly what Xehanort would’ve asked. Cause chaos, bring destruction, shuttle the false light out of worlds by consuming them into darkness. It hardly matters, I’m good at it. It’s not so hard to find worlds on the border, worlds without a proper barrier of light to protect them--worlds without princesses. It’s not so hard. Xehanort left everything so fragile, so teetering, failing to summon Kingdom Hearts properly. I’m high on his broken attempts, at all of his shortcomings. Feels terrible doesn’t it, I think as I watch the Darklings tear through the world. Through flesh and skin and human bones. They’re different than any of Xehanort’s creatures. Their claws sever in very new and perfect ways. Who’d have ever guessed just how deep light can run? Certainly not Xehanort. Not that little old disgrace of a man. Small, wraith. Old coot. Couldn’t even properly summon Kingdom Hearts.

You need to be stronger, Xehanort, darkness is all you’re good for.’

Vanitas’ hatred pours, in the form of tears through my closed eyes, and on my back, pretending to not react, I can’t even so much as wipe them away before they disappear into the hair near my temples and ears. 

“Rueki…” Lea’s voice is too sympathetic. A hot hand brushes my cheek. I could sob.

Vanitas’ darkness seems to sense this agony and clings to it, using me as a crutch, a springload. 

‘It wasn’t Xigbar that inspired me--her, him, we, us-- though. It was some ancient sort of Master, a Keyblade wielder from the most ancient past, our most ancient past, Ven’s most ancient past. The logistics don’t bother me, nor does the company I keep, aggravating as they are. The Foretellers are high and mighty, and the other New Union Leaders are exactly the group I’d be content never seeing again. 

But as the Darklings devour the world, they lead me and this new blade that fills the weight of my hands in a way that is strangely satisfying and utterly emptying, straight to the source of the world’s heart. Straight to the light. I order them ‘consume it’ but not before keeping a piece for myself first. The tiniest glimmer, the brightest little flicker. These worlds are trash, after all, says Xigbar. And while I couldn’t pretend to give a quarter of a fuck about any orders he thinks he’s in the right to bark out, I do know what I want. To steal, to snatch, to inject myself with just enough of this beautiful little magic that for a moment, everything heals.

For a moment, I am Ventus and we are suspended in the purest of heaven’s, bathed in the warmth of Terra’s smile, of Aqua’s embrace. For a moment, I’m a child, playing with swords and a boy who fights with frisbees and his blue haired friend and a blonde little girl are laughing so loud I can’t hear my own thoughts.

For just a trickle of a second, nothing hurts and every nerve ending vibrates with delicious pleasure.

But every light flickers out from these tainted world’s hearts. Even the ones I slam into my own chest. Maybe the old man was onto something after all, there’s nothing good about false light. Be stronger, Vanitas. I am. I am. Do you think he’d be proud of me?’

Every bit of me that is Rueki protests, screaming in defiance, internally. Vanitas is trash, an absolute monster of a boy, but nothing excuses the pressure I feel on my heart. I don’t know if Ven’s solidarity in the age of Fairy Tales or Xehanort’s abuse were the final straw, but there is not one part of the boy that isn’t crumbling. He is decay, masking itself as human, ache pretending to be a boy. No wonder Ventus couldn’t bring himself to fully strike down his other half, memories or not, surely he must’ve sensed the sheer hell Vanitas convinced himself was home. This poor fucking boy. He doesn’t know up from down. 

But I do know what he felt, light overwhelming him, raking his body, ravishing him thoroughly. Even the phantom sensations were enough to exhilarate me. It was exactly what Xigbar did to me in the Keyblade Graveyard, to calm me down from my hysteria when Kairi was crystalized. He filled me with light.

Maybe he’d do it again if I--. I halt my thoughts. No, absolutely not, under no circumstances. The life I have now is extraordinary, burdens be damned. Lea and I have sorted things out, Kairi is alive. Every bit the fantasy I envisioned about the war being over has come to fruition, I don’t need a magical cure all to panic or nightmares, I don’t need to get high on some sort of magic power that made me forget and made Vanitas feel good for a split second. Cuz I’m good, and I feel good and I am going to utilize every bit of Vanitas’ memories to end this new trial before it even starts.

From world to vulnerable world, makes sense as to why Kairi didn’t find a whole lot of anything on her search.

There are more aftershocks that follow, more absolutely crippling thrusts of darkness before my body finally does spend itself and I do fall into a blank, dreamless sleep.

\--

The first time I wake, everyone is gone except for Kairi, who has her cheek pressed to my hip and her eyes closed. I’ve spent enough time lying awake while she sleeps soundly to know that she is merely resting her eyes. Instinctually, I want to slide a hand through her silky hair, as it falls into her face. But I don’t. Instead, I watch the conflict on her face, her brow puckered together, her forehead crinkly. She presses her cheek deeper into me and makes a small grunting noise, frustration leaking out of her. 

“Are you up?” She asks. I guess I must’ve underestimated how observant she is. She’s spent just as much time around me to know that I’m not asleep either when she’s close enough to touch.

“Mmmhmm.” I say, patting her head. 

“Are you okay?” She asks. “I know what it feels like being overwhelmed by light, I feel like darkness is probably just as bad, if not worse.”

Oh, it’s much worse, I want to say. But she wouldn’t know that and I wouldn’t know what it feels like to be warped by the love of light. 

“No worse than usual. In case you missed it, I’m literally having darkness shoved down my throat all the time anyway.” I spit, tongue rolling dryly in my mouth.

“Yeah.” She whispers, tucking her knees to her chest. Her eyes flutter open, but she doesn’t peel herself away from me. “Do you hate me?”

“Of course I don’t hate you.” I roll my eyes, more annoyed that I have to be answering this question than anything, which speaks volumes to me. “Don’t let Lea blaming you get to your head.”

“You were listening.” She smirks a little, dimples popping on her freckly face. “I knew it. That’s so you.”

“It was either pretend to be asleep or deal with you damn vultures swarming me while I writhed on the floor. The former seemed preferable.” I explain and her smirk disappears.

“Since when are your friends vultures?” Fuck. “Rueki?”

“I was making a joke babe, don’t be so sensitive.” I’m aware that I sound like a cunt, doesn’t change how badly I want to deflect this conversation. Fuck Lea for putting me in this place, and fuck Kairi too for not having the good sense to remember that I hate talking about my feelings. That hasn’t changed, even when so much has. 

“But you think of me that way, don’t you?” She asks, voice light and trembling. For the first time, she sounds a bit like Naminé. Broken, fragile, like glass on the verge of shattering. 

“What’s gotten into you?” I ask, pursing my lips. “Don’t let Lea get to you. He’s being a baby cuz he had to pick up the pieces.”

“But he had to pick up pieces.” She bites her lip. “He had to fix you so something was broken because of me. Because I left you.”

“You didn’t leave me Kairi, you died.” I say, in a hollow voice. “My best friend didn’t disappear, she was killed. And I got told that I needed to give up hope because you weren’t coming back. Of course something was broken, of course Lea had to pick up pieces. What did you think was going to happen? I was just going to forget that you exist altogether? I’m being eaten alive by darkness now, but that’s nothing on how pitch black my world was when you were gone. Is that what you want to hear? Did you want me to help you beat yourself up so you can pretend you feel sad for fifteen seconds, cuz I tell you what, I’m sure it sounds really pretty to have a whole damn rainbow of feelings, but it’s not. Feeling sad feels like shit.” 

I realize right away how deep the words cut. And how on anyone else, this might not be repairable. Even Kairi’s shoulders start shaking. She turns her face completely into my hip, hiding it, which is probably for the best, because I don’t know if I could look at her either. I do touch her face though, tuck her hair behind her ear like I thought of doing earlier, like I would’ve done last year when all I wanted was to have her back. It tastes so bitter to want something with every cell in your body only to have it come true and realize that the consequences of having it are worse than the emptiness of wishing. 

“I just had to save him.” She whispered. “I couldn’t watch him die.”

He wouldn’t have, I think to say, but I’ve said enough. 

“I didn’t want to hurt you.” She insists.

“Well, next time you die, I promise I’ll give less of a fuck.” I mutter. “Sorry, bad joke.” Again.

“I hate that things feel this way. I missed so much.” She shakes her head. “I should’ve been able to be there for you and get you through everything.” 

“Well you couldn’t and it happened. So stop worrying about it, cuz I’m not.” I assure her, though I’m not certain how convincing I am, because I’m not sure I’m fully convinced. “We just have to pick up and move on from where we’re at.” 

“You’ve spent the last year making due with what you have, and you shouldn’t have had to. I can tell things are different. They’ve felt different since I came home. Is it because Skuld is up your ass? Because you don’t need to suck up to her, you know?” She asks and I laugh loudly, uncomfortably.

“Dude!” I protest. 

“I’ve just never seen you suck up to anyone, it’s weird, it doesn’t seem like you.” She confesses. “But I guess I really don’t know you anymore. And that makes me sad. Like for real sad.” 

“I’m not suddenly different, Kairi.” I complain, ceasing my musing with her hair. “I’m just…” I grieved her, I don’t know how to line the pieces up of who she is up with what I had to become to heal around her. I don’t know how to close the distance when I was so lonely and had just come to terms with the fact that the space between us couldn’t be closed. But all of this sounds so empty, sounds so broken and will result in more tears that I don’t want to cry and pain that she won’t be able to correctly process so I’ll have to. There’s enough breaking me down without having to deal with this, something I’m tolerating well enough without putting extra weight on her. “I’m just dealing with a lot. This whole Xigbar thing is fucking exhausting. The last thing I wanted was to be involved in another war.”

“Yeah, I know.” She nods. “But it’s an adventure. You’re good at adventure.”

I really don’t fucking want to be.

“Where are the others?”

“Riku’s on the phone with Ienzo, seeing if he has any sciency-stuff that could help with your heart, I think. Naminé and Roxas went with him, since they both seem to know more about your heart than the rest of us. Amaya’s upstairs feeding Lucidia, I think Del and Xion went with her so that Xion could give them a more in depth run down than you’ve been…” She bites her lip. “Um, and Isa and Skuld dragged Lea out to grab dinner for all of us. I can call them and have them grab some food for you, Lea would be so happy to hear that you’re up, they had to pry him from your side. Kind of rude, he’s not the only one that loves the hell out of you.”

“No, it’s good.” I say, quickly. “I’m drained as shit still. I could use another nap.” And it’s not a complete lie. The longer I’m awake, the more darkness leaks in, scratching at the edges of my heart but there’s also the point of I don’t want to go over this with everyone. Kairi’s much better at that, and worlds more accommodating than I am. “You can fill them in on me being okay. And just have Xion and Roxas and Sora fill everyone in on the Vanitas stuff.” 

“That’s the thing, Rueki, you’re the only one who is in touch with his heart. We just called Aqua and even Ven isn’t having any issues.” Kairi says, coming up for air, pressing her forearm into the couch as she finally looks at me, eyes a little red. 

Well that is an interesting development. I was flat out pouring myself into everyone around me not so very long ago, and now the hearts tied to mine can’t get a read on me whatsoever, even with my defenses down in my sleep? 

I mean, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Huh. Well, the Foretellers are on a mission to seek out which worlds are actually light and which ones are just draining the real light. They’re gonna snuff out all the ones that are draining Kingdom Hearts. We just get to figure out which ones and hopefully beat them to the punch.” I explain, a lot less phased by it than she is, and I guess it’s probably because there’s this stupid shitty prophecy about me, so of course what the Foretellers and fucking Vanitas are doing seem only too obvious now that I say it out loud. 

“Well…” Kairi decides, licking her lips. “That’s pretty shit.” 

“Yep.” I agree. “So, let them know, and when I wake up, maybe I’ll have an answer for you as to where the fuck we’re supposed to go next.”

And when no one needs anything of me, I rest. Rest with eyes fluttered shut, and though Vanitas doesn’t fill my mind, the thought of dancing does. Once again, suspended in air, limbs tugged like puppet strings. This doesn’t feel so unpleasant though, not really. Not when the strings are just extensions of my own veins and this thing, this force, can’t compel me to do anything I wasn’t already capable of. Instead of nerve wracking, the way I contort is spellbinding, enamoring. I don’t feel shaken but invigorated.

Like I actually fucking count for something.

I wake again and it’s dark and nearly everyone is passed out on the floor or the sofas. Lea is leaning now against me, head pressed into the curve of my waist, my arm hanging around his neck. Soft snores--or not so soft from Sora--fill the air, and though my sleep schedule is beyond fucked, this moment of piece is something I refuse to take for granted.

“You okay?” Skuld’s voice draws my limbs tight like a wire. In the inky blackness of the room, her hair and her slim frame almost completely camouflaged her. In fact, were it not for the moon and stars illuminating the silvery shimmer of the scars on her fair skin, I never would’ve seen her, in a new black dress--a high neck bodycon mini with split chiffon long sleeves-- and a pair of lacey thigh highs. Which is rude, because I would look like a cheap hooker in an outfit like that and she just looks a little extra witchey. “Lea says you have a lot of nightmares.”

Apparently Lea still struggles with keeping the things I do in bed, private. 

“A dream actually.” Strange, I don’t know the last time I’ve had one until now.

“Hmm.” She just says and starts to twirl a charm bracelet with suns and moons adorning it, around her wrist. Which has me curious. My eyes flick from Isa to Lea and sure enough, both of them are wearing new clothes. Isa is decked out in a dark blue blazer, a gray crewneck and a pair of white jeans, despite being sprawled out across one of the couches. And then there’s Lea, would would look fucking delicious in a black v-neck and black jeans with a red belt and an orange blazer with flannel accents. He’s a dream, actually. But I can imagine how the whole fucking event went down. I’m sure it started off with Skuld and Isa having a really hard time twisting his arm, trying to convince him to come pick up dinner with them, and after that, it must’ve been damn easy to forget me, to forget that I was passed out on the fucking couch. Just like we forgot about Xion for days on end, keeping her only in the back of our minds as we pondered how much more important Sora and Roxas were and how we couldn’t do anything for a puppet that broke on the regular and--

No. That’s not how I fucking felt. Xion was my friend. I worried about her. It didn’t feel good, having to contemplate whether or not she or Roxas should be allowed to live, I loved both of them, still do. I didn’t like being forced to choose, I made a decision while backed into a corner, and I’m not stupid enough to consider that the self I want to judge.

Lea and I didn’t match anymore. He needed a new outfit. And he looks fine as fuck in this one. I’m the only one who is going to be taking it off of him, so maybe it’s time to stop acting like a jealous bitch and detach myself from Vanitas and his possessive ass self. 

“I know you were awake when we were talking about the prophecy.” Skuld says, licking her lips. Which are red. Like the very same red I used to wear, red. Why does she work my look better than me? Like disgustingly better? That’s fucking unfair.

“Your bluntness fuels me. I told Kairi to keep you guys posted.” So what if I didn’t expect her to tell everyone that I was listening in on them instead of feeling my feelings like a functional person, if I don’t have to explain to everyone and answer a thousand questions that I don’t have answers to about the Foretellers and Vanitas, then that’s okay by me. She can tell them all of my secrets, that’s a hell of a good trade.

“Your friend didn’t tell us that.” Skuld draws a knee up to her chest. “I just...knew because I would. I got a feeling that you were the same.” She draws her teeth across her lower lip, which is so Rueki, it’s painful. 

“When did you?” I ask, not just because I get the feeling she wants me to ask, but because I actually want to know. 

“Luxu talks a lot.” She says.

“And literally never stops.” I agree. “Some times about things that don’t actually fucking matter, and then you wanna cut his ponytail off.”

“Very frequently.” She smirks, then turns to look out at the moon. “I listened to him a lot. He talked about you a lot. I think some of my first memories after waking up and knowing who I was, were him saying your name and talking about how proud he was of you. Not your alchemy, something with you opening up a shop.” My stomach drops. Of course he’s been watching since before Del and Amaya opened the repair shop. Of course. “I’ve never heard anyone say your name, or anything, really, in the same way he talked about you. I really didn’t expect the fated alchemist to be married to someone else.”

“But I am. And Lea’s right, the prophecy is a lot of ifs.” I remind her.

“I agree.” She nods. “But...I think you have things to work on.”

“I think I have a lot to work on.” Constantly, always, in some way or another. “In case you’ve missed it, I’m rather terrible.”

“You’re not a bad person. Or at least you’re trying very hard not to be.” She observes.

“Well, it is garbage can, not garbage can’t.” I smirk. She rolls her eyes. “It was a joke.”

“If you have the sense of humor of a four year old.” She replies. When I stiffen, she slinks further into the wall, skirt riding up a tiny bit upon her thighs. “And that right there is your biggest problem. You’re pretty desperate for approval.” 

Fuck her.

“Am not. Just not trying to fight my husband’s friends anymore. That fucking spot you got me with when we were sparring? That weakness was basically a wedding present from Isa.” It’s not, but for theatrical effect, I don’t mind saying it when I love to blame him for every other one that decorates my skin. 

“You can just say you like when people like you. It’s not a bad thing.” But the way she says it makes me feel like she’d consider me weak if I did, and I guess the hardest part is I’m just not used to playing this sort of underhanded game, at least not without Lea on my side. 

“I’m just over this conflict shit, plain and simple. I’m not so stupid I can’t learn from the mistakes of the past.” And I say that hoping she understands that not only do I mean mine and Isa’s mistakes, but the mistakes her fellow Keybearers made even…

Luxord. Ludor. Whatever. Fuck him.

“Well, I think it would be hard for anyone, even someone who didn’t want approval to deny someone like him. Someone who says your name like you are creation’s gift and made of pure light yourself. Someone who idealizes your flaws because he is convinced that each and every one of them were designer made to challenge, improve and heal him in some way. He genuinely believes that the Master of Masters himself handcrafted you specifically for him.” She says. I open my mouth to protest, and she must see this, because she sighs. 

“Xigbar likes my ass.” I deflet, because he was hardly as flirty upon our last interaction, and I cannot consider once more, the way he looked at me, as though holding his breath, the first time I called him by his true name. 

“He likes that you’re into reading. And witty, and forward thinking. He likes that you curse a lot and are annoyed by traditional authoritarian structure and are unyielding but are empathetic and in touch with your heart and are so proud of the people you hold dear. He likes that you’re resilient and calculating and hard working.” Skuld explains, leaving me with a dry mouth and crawling skin. What the fresh fuck, what the hell possessed Xigbar to think this was appropriate to tell anyone? And why the girl he intended to toss as a wrench into our perfect machine. 

I think I know the answer, but it’s something he’s not going to be happy about. I am forward thinking. I’m smarmy, and I would love to see the look on his face when I stand at Skuld’s side instead of against her. 

“There’s a difference between watching someone and caring about them.” And though there were genuine, soft moments between the two of us, me counting our breaths as we lay spent on the ground of the Keyblade Graveyard, him sitting on the ground in Transmute City and speaking in riddles as the sun rose, those moments were scattered, those moments are not long built love and affection, the way I have with Lea. 

“He knows that you pick at your palms when you’re frustrated and that you don’t sleep often, that being up in the air always makes you happy and that you won’t cut your hair, but you’re way too active to treat it like anything other than a nuisance.” Skuld continues.

“Well everyones knows that. If Lea didn’t braid it every day for me, I probably wouldn’t even brush it.” Until a dear friend died…

“He’s just very fixated. No one would judge you if you found it flattering.” She says. “At least, I wouldn’t. I wished I was in your shoes for a long time.” 

“And then you met me.” I make a face. 

“I don’t envy you. That’s all. Especially when you’ve spent time being morally ambiguous. It’s hard to know how to separate right from wrong.” She says. My stomach drops, her words knock the wind out of me and I shift a little. 

“It’s kinda rude that you hit the nail on the head, you know.” 

“Well rude and Rueki sound pretty similar.” Skuld smirks.

“And I’m the one with the sense of humor like a four year old?” I giggle.

“I didn’t say I didn’t, your joke was just bad.” We both stifle laughter, trying our damndest to keep from waking the others. “Look I’m just...I get what it feels like. To have someone so powerful that has so many plans for you that you just feel like you keep walking further and further into. It pisses me off so much, what the Foretellers bated us into. You don’t want to see your friends fight another war, but I don’t want to watch someone else stumble into the Master of Master’s plans.”

“That prophecy was a lot of ifs.” I protest, meekly.

“He hasn’t been wrong about anything, this far.” And she’s right. That’s the kind of airtight logic I can’t argue with.

“What do you suggest?” I ask.

“I know Lea seems to want to look after you and keep you on the right track. He said you had for him once. But I think you and Lea have both spent too much time in moral ambiguity. Isa too for that matter.” She licks her lips.

“A lot of us.” I agree. “I’m totally telling them you said that.” I grin.

“Do it. I’d tell them both that they’re assholes sometimes.” She smirks. I fucking love this girl. “Lea adores you, and I think him holding your hand will help. But I know this prophecy, I know the Foretellers. If you want, I’ll help steer for a while.”

And isn’t that what I wanted? To not be responsible for my own actions, to put someone else in the driver’s seat? To play a minimal role in this war and not drown myself in the cycle of violence?

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” 

It’s all nice as we fall back asleep, me dreaming this time of blearing colors, coordinates and upside down, cheshire grins. 

The sun is rising when I wake. Lea is still on the ground and kissing my knuckles. 

No one else is stirring and I’m so grateful for the sun. 

“Fucking finally.” He whispers against my skin. I grin, hugely.

“No one else up?” I ask.

“Just us, I think.”

“You used to be such a bastard in the mornings.” I recall.

“Only when someone woke me up.” He counters. “I’m awake now.”

“And pleasant, things have changed.” I tease. Lea tip back, green eyes meeting mine. I could dissolve. “Can you come up here?” 

“Gonna make me spoon you, sweetheart?” He plays as though he is huffy, but he’s glowing as he clambers up beside me, instantly twining his arms around me. I am warmed straight to the core, my insides burning and brightening like lava. “You okay? What can I do for you?”

“No worse than usual.” I shake my head as it is tucked beneath his chin. “And there’s nothing. Just...let’s stay like this for a little while. Vanitas hasn’t landed just yet, we’ve got a minute.” 

“Landed?” Lea stirs, I frown.

“I know where he’s heading, I can get there faster. But can we just…”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Lea replies easily, holding me a little closer, kissing my temples. I draw his fists up to my lips and start returning the favor upon his hands and wrists. “You know, I’ve always liked you like this.”

“A hot mess?” I ask.

“No. I mean, obviously I don’t mind you being a dumpster fire, that’s kind of your thing.” He chuckles. A smile pulls at the edges of my cheeks. “No, like..in the morning. Especially with the red in your hair. Your eyes, your cheeks, your lips...You just look so pretty when the sun is rising on you.” I don’t know how to respond to what he says, but my stomach leaps into my heart and my insides begin to wind up, buzzing, sparking, every neuron within turning golden. “That’s...um...like the first time I decided I didn’t want to be what I was. That I wanted to be better. The first time you stayed the night and I saw you waking up in the rising sun.”

“Lea…” I whisper.

“I just...think you’ve probably had enough darkness.” He says. “I just wanted to remind you what the light looks like.” And it looks like the rising sun.

“I heard everything, you know?” I murmur. “I wasn’t out cold. I just didn’t need a thousand of you crowding me when the darkness was already smothering me.”

“You fucking stink.” He pinches the back of my arm. I yelp, reach around and pinch him back. “I don’t give a shit what they know, but you could’ve at least gestured or something, Rueks. Like tickled my hand to let me know you weren’t dying. Asshole.”

“Yeah, cuz you’re so fucking good at not causing a scene.” I roll my eyes.

“I can behave myself when needed.” He counters. “Next time have the decency to pinch me or something.”

“Next time darkness knocks me on my ass and is physically painful to stomach, I’ll be sure to pinch you.” I say, dryly.

“You’re such a dick.” He snickers and kisses my shoulder. “You gonna let me be here for you?”

“I am.” I say. “This is being here for me. You know I have to process on my own, I just get pissy when other people bog things down. Just...be here for me when I’m done. Hold me like this.”

“And never let you go.” He finishes. “The second you need me, I’ve got you, baby.”

“I know you do, my red light.” 

The sun warms the entire room as it rises on us. As it rises on the dawning.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't edit the last chapter and it's haunting me.
> 
> It just took a really long time to get my couch up the balcony of my apartment last week, I'm sorry. I had to confess.

XIV.

“You know, I’m still down to turn back, I actually don’t mind if darkness takes this world.” I say, making a face.

“Why do you hate this place so much, it’s pretty.” Skuld asks, golden eyes gazing in some sort of twisted wonder at this monstrosity. 

“She had a mission here with Xigbar--uh, Luxu--back in the day.” I can see the conflict on Lea’s face as he rubs the back of his neck, the group of us clustered around him. Me, Isa, Skuld and Lea, my husband, the sun, our focal point. What an interesting necessity we’ve created, amongst ourselves. Lea won’t go anywhere without me, and I won’t go anywhere without Skuld around to tap my knuckles at the slightest hint of a toe out of line. Then, there’s Isa, who is still vehemently refusing to let Skuld out of his sight. I can’t decide if this grouping is incendiary or extraordinary and what pisses me off the most is no amount of dissecting the dynamic will tell. “He’s got control over space, and this world shifts anyway if you find the wrong way into rooms, so of course he was just thriving on that. Apparently he kept shifting the planes until Rueks over here got sick.”

“The cat that lives here is a smarmy dick too.” I pipe up. Isa makes a face.

“You were never paired with Xigbar on a mission.” Isa says.

“You remember all of them, dove?” I bat my eyes obnoxiously, Isa doesn’t falter though.

“Yes. And especially that pairing. He was very keen about uncovering secrets of your memories. In fact, that was the only reason Xemnas deigned to tell him you also were a Nobody, to silence his queries. The Freeshooter was quite persistent about the little oddity from Transmute City. Funny, all things considered.” But it doesn’t feel funny to me, not even in the dark, dry way which he is insinuating. In fact, every word is a slap in the face, a reminder that Xigbar stole my memories from me, that Xigbar sent me to Transmute City, that so much chaos and so many lives were broken because Xigbar has been obsessed with me for longer than I even acknowledged him.

Luxu.

My hands start to shake, Lea can sense this. He reaches out, grabs my hand and laces our fingers together before bringing my knuckles up to kiss them.

“Funny might not be the word I’d use.” Skuld murmurs.

“Well, karma sure is slapping me in the face. Guess I should’ve just done my job.” Lea murmurs, brow knitting together. He must be trying very hard to make me laugh, but his failure is nearly comical.

“Well, I could have told you that.” Isa is also failing to fall into our typical rough banter, but I guess I do appreciate the effort. This would be so much easier without Vanitas leaking into me. “Charming as this world is, I do believe we actually have a time sensitive purpose here.”

Right, because maybe one day I’ll be good at something that doesn’t bring me to my knees, but today isn’t that day. I screw my face up, trying to be selective in the memories I sift through, but Vanitas is overwhelming and all consuming. I feel the weight of a spiky Keyblade as it sinks into flesh, feel the pain like a snare that closes around my--his, our--gut as Unversed are destroyed. And I see him traveling through light, into the Keyhole of a door handle.

“There’s a portal inside of some bizzare room. The one with the talking doorknob. One of you guys will have to open it up, but that’ll lead us into the world’s heart. That’s where he is.” I say. 

“It’s curious, what incentive is there, why is the boy allowing himself to be treated as a guard dog, yet again?” Isa asks. Suddenly, I’m very busy with my cuticles. Kairi relayed any and everything to everyone while I was asleep, Skuld’s speculation was spot on, I don’t need to tell everyone about the second hand high I got as Vanitas devoured the little bits of light he saved himself from each of the worlds he took down. 

“You’ve been in the dark like that for years, imagine that being your whole life.” I spit, quickly, forcing anything logical to come from my lips. “He’s over it. And they promised him a world full of light.”

“If you expect us to start feeling sorry for someone who prides themselves on being the embodiment of darkness--” Skuld begins, but I shake my head.

“No, I’m just...that’s his goal. That’s what he’s trying for. 

“Well, Vanitas is a little asshole and he’s not an idiot, but he can be poked into talking, so whatever else we need, I’m sure we can fanagle it out of him.” Lea suggests and immediately my heart seizes up. No, please, no more, don’t hurt him, he’s endured enough. I shake my head and shake off the feelings that aren’t mine. I don’t need to fanagle. If I’m bound to take in the residual dark, all I have to do is tempt him and his heart will do the rest of the work. No one else needs to suffer the backlash when I have a white knuckled grip on my powers.

“Is there anyone else with him?” Isa asks and I shake my head.

“No.” Though I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

“Well, now or never, huh?” Lea cocks his head to the side. It’s not as though the bizarre room is hard to find, what is difficult though is finding it and not being too tall to fit through the Keyhole or being upside down, or sideways. This entire fucking world is nausea enducing, but every time Lea offers me his arm, I shake my head or swat him away.

“This is fueling my rage. Getting sick makes me think of all the ways I can pummel Xigbar’s stupid face into one of these fucking upside down lanterns.” I grumble as we dip back out from where we came and tuck into another entrance. This one, fortunately, seems to be the right one, which is good, we’ve already wasted enough time and all of us to feel the urgency. We rush, Skuld keeping up with me, long legs carrying her easily.

“Why Xigbar?” She asks, brow ruffling beneath her bangs, breath barely getting heavier. “You don’t call Lea or Isa by the names they used to have, why just him?”

“Because if he’s so set on believing that the ‘alchemist’ and Luxu are tied, then I’m gonna be a thorn in his side. He’s not Luxu to me, he’s Xigbar. And I’m not an alchemist to him if I’m just casting nasty spells on him.” I say flatly. Her full mouth fixes into a pout as we come to a stop at the door knob. In her hands, that Starlight Keyblade materializes. She points it, eyes narrowed at the Keyhole.

Lea and Isa skid to a stop behind us with just enough time for the light to capture all four of us and plummet us straight into the heart of the world. Light travel is delightful, exactly as tingly as I remember and I have to shake my head to clear away the pleasant blurring in my mind. 

“That sounds awfully superstitious.” She criticizes.

“It is.” I agree, as I struggle more than she does to get my bearings. “But...you didn’t see the way he looked at me when I said that name.” It doesn’t feel right to say it again.

“I told you. It’s on another level, the devotion.” The obsession.

“Whose devotion?” Lea asks, snaring an arm around my shoulders.

“Yours. To Isa.” I wave a hand.

“You’d make a lovely couple.” Skuld agrees, sticking her tongue out.

“Please don’t tell me the way you are is contagious.” Isa rolls his eyes. 

“I mean, Skuld and Rueks are already pretty alike. Sassy as all hell.” Lea winks in her general direction and my insides clench furious, the twitching of a pulse.

Dude. Calm down, I order myself. It’s a fucking wink. He winks at people, he’s allowed to be goofy with his friends. Even the ones that are pretty...even the ones that he claims are like me. That are better at being me than I am. It must look so pretty, using justice, not sarcasm, to recover from hell. 

I need to stop flipping the fuck out, this is uncalled for as all hell. And probably a sign that Vanitas is nearby. Definitely a sign that Vanitas is nearby. I can’t be responsible for all this darkness. 

Around us, the light from our travels fades, but the colors of the room radiate and glow, even with the dim illumination. The heart of a world is nothing like what I expected. It’s not some bright room with a glorious heart in the center, sentient and safe. Instead, it’s almost a cavern, this one with playing cards suits and roses adorning the outlines. I’m intrigued by a glowing red sphere at the center of one of the designs, a circle of roses. Without even voicing concern or even needing to search for Vanitas’ process within, I take a step toward the sphere.

“Rueki?” Lea asks. “This some sort of psychic thing?” He asks.

“Nah, just a hunch.” And with that, I steal out the red sphere and take it into my hands. It’s hot and the glow doesn’t falter. So, with the sphere held out, I wave it around the room, eyes narrowed, as I search.

“You wanna share with the class what you’re doing, sweetheart?” Lea asks. 

“Kind of winging it, but I remember reading something in school about the Al-Bhed and the place called Spira that they came from. It was a religious based community and we mostly read a lot of stuff about the conflict between them, but there was a little bit about the temples of Spira and their construction.” I wave the sphere around again and the red light flashes upon an empty circle, in the middle of another cluster of roses. Bullseye. “The religion in Spira was about as crackpot as it came, but I wonder if any of their temple construction was based on fact, on this. ” I beckon them and head over to the empty circle, where I place the sphere. Momentarily, I’m worried I’ve ruined something, because the glow blinks out, but as quick as it blinks out, the sphere turns white and a blinding glow illuminates the room. Staggering, clunking noises start sputtering out of the walls and suddenly they part, revealing a long, dark hallway.

“I’ve seen stuff like this.” Skuld confesses. “The cells were like this, when Luxu took me from mine, he opened up walls the same way you were, like they were ingredients to access the rooms.”

“If what she says is true, Aqua performed a similar trick, turning the Land of Departure into Castle Oblivion.” Isa says.

“So it’s some sort of Keybearer magic, but it’s tied to alchemists too?” Lea lifts an eyebrow. 

“Probably like Scala ad Caelum. Maybe the two were a little more tied once upon a time.” I offer. “Maybe that’s why I can wield your Keyblade, maybe it’s more science than heart.” No one seems interested in biting on that theory, though.

“Does that mean it needs to be you that opens these walls up?” Skuld asks, chewing on her lip with apparent anxiety. Which I get, since this is all supposed to be about me not having an active role and not using a ton of alchemy if I can help it. 

“Probably not.” I twist my mouth in contemplation. “I’m not actually doing alchemy, the sphere already contains the energy and the destructive ingredient necessary. I can go over it more later but--”

“But Vanitas is a swift little brat.” Isa says. I smirk.

“To say the least.” So, despite the fact that I’m not a necessary component, and I’m not supposed to be eager about this, I take off down the hallway, and realize quite quickly that footsteps are not echoing behind me. That’s fine, I tell myself. I can’t keep up with caution and anxious hands tugging at my coat tails. Instead, I smash down the sudden clenching of loneliness and walk up to the next visible arrangement of flowers, that have wound themselves into a little glyph and press the center, hoping that I’m remembering everything correctly from a class I took in my youth. 

I’m fine, I’m safe. Lea loves me, stop panicking, I’m fine.  
The center of the glyph widens, revealing another red sphere and I vow that the next time I’m in Transmute City, I will track down my Ancient Mythologies of Spira teacher and thank him profusely. 

If the Heartless haven’t eaten him.

Eyes narrowed, I look across the room and see another set of rosey glyphs and a pedestal with an opening for a sphere. Eagerness be damned, this is, at the very least, a little intoxicating. The riddles, the force I create, the way that each sphere pulls me with the same intensity every sigil did in Scala ad Caelum. 

“Are you going to stand there all day looking at the thing or are you going to do something?” Isa asks from behind me and I flinch. Fucking asshole, I didn’t even realize that he was behind me, but he’s the only one. I hear Lea and Skuld’s voices coming down the hall, but they haven’t caught up yet. Focus on the call. On the pull, on the way solving this puzzle makes me feel.

“Waiting on slow pokes is all.” I say, mutedly as I ignore the red sphere to stride over to the other glyph. I smack my hand into it and seize up a white sphere as it materializes from the center. “Hey, shnookums. Catch.” I throw the orb toward Isa, who has no trouble catching it up, but even through the dark, I can see he’s lifting an eyebrow. “The pedestal.” I sigh, because whether or not I’m necessary hardly seems the point if I’m the only one who can deduce. He’s at least competent to follow orders though, because he places the sphere on the pedestal and the outline of a door appears.

“Lea!” I call and he looks up, away from Skuld, as they find their way in, one massive hand on his cocked hip. “Toss me that other sphere.” Lea presses his lips as he looks at it, picks it up and chucks it at me. I leap into the air and catch the orb and set it right in the empty circle. Bricks crumble around the door, illuminating a path to something vibrant and white. My face breaks out into a grin, I move forward and feel a hand close around mine. My eyes flick up, surprised that Lea has returned to my side.

“Hey, what’s the hurry?” He asks and brings my knuckles to his lips. My heart flutters just a little, but this is hardly the time when the call is stronger than ever and the path is clearly laid out. 

Thanks to me

“Well, Vanitas is here starting shit, kind of time sensitive, don’t you think?” I ask. Lea shrugs.

“Sure, but...you know, I sure hate watching you ten steps ahead of me.” Lea replies and my insides grow cold. Okay, so maybe he and Skuld were talking about me, maybe they were devising a plan to make me more hands off this sort of project in the future. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal, what else were they supposed to do when I was playing puzzles?

“Sorry.” I murmur. 

“You’re good. But you don’t have to do everything, Rueks.” He reminds me. I nod, and this time, he is the one pulling me forward, leading the way down a hall to a white room, embellished with fully colored spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs and roses. 

There, at the center of the room, wearing dark colored clothing-- a dark red jacket, a black zip up henley, tattered black jeans and dark red sneakers-- is Vanitas, whose golden eyes are narrowed, focused on a swirling, glowing, pink heart in the sky. Said eyes are colder and hollower than I recall, even--especially--as they find the group of us, namely me. A snarl twists Vanitas’ features, which would be unnerving even if he didn’t look like Sora. The boy looks downright sick, more sallow and distorted than I remember, as though death has somehow aged him. 

“I’m not here to play with you, witch.” Vanitas leers, but doesn’t lower his blade from where it is, aimed at the sky. The same spiked blade that cut down that girl who looked remarkably like me. 

“Damn shame. I brought all of my friends and everything.” I pout lavishly. Thank fuck I’m still good at shit talking, that muscle isn’t atrophied.

“Are you still having nightmares about my hands around your throat?” He taunts.

“Are you still crying yourself to sleep cuz you’re not in Ven’s arms? We can do this all day.” There’s an abrupt pang that seems to puncture my abdomen at the incantation of his other’s name, as though this absence of what he is lacking causes him tremendous ache. Like the hollow pain Axel used to talk about feeling in his chest.

Vanitas whirls around, Keyblade brushing the cutout of my shirt, just enough to scrape flesh. He cocks his head to the side, looking more like a hanged man than a boy. Something putrid nearly melts off of him, dark and thick and grotesque. Even recompleted, there is a distinct and inhuman aura about this boy. He looks me over, slowly, and I don’t need to read his mind to know he will not be satisfied until I’m trying to peel off my own skin. 

“Why am I not surprised? The witch has gotten soft.” He appraises, eyes flicking back to mine.. For a moment, it looks as though he’s going to say something nasty about Isa or Lea, but whatever comment he had brewing dies. His face falls limp, his eyes soften. By no standard of the word is there anything sweet about his expression, quite the contrary. He’s as malicious as ever, and this newfound curiosity feels dangerous. “What edges of the realm did you have to scour to dig her up, witch?”

Memories flash behind my eyes, building a snowman in Daybreak Town with Skuld, a boy’s hand on his --mine, our--shoulder, Skuld and another boy standing on the sidelines. ‘Your name wasn’t on that list.’ Ventus’ missing memories have found a home inside of Vanitas. 

Bound by the blackened shackles of Vanitas’ heart, I can’t even bring myself to speak up. I only watch as conflict contorts Skuld’s features.

“I know your voice.” She mutters. 

“It’s cuz he sounds like Sora.” Lea waves a hand. “He’s just the dark part of Ven’s heart.”

“No.” Skuld shakes her head. “I know your voice.” She repeats and Vanitas howls, a glorious, repulsive laugh. 

“How sweet. The little hero really never does forget.” He taunts. “What was it that the last little princess said, before we stole the false light straight from the heart of her world? You and I have met. Once. Upon. A. Dream.”

There’s no hesitation when Skuld winds her Keyblade back and swats his away from me, teeth bared. 

“This light isn’t yours.” She snarls. 

“This light isn’t real. You know that.” Vanitas cackles.

“All light is light.” Skuld counters.

“Sure. If you’re okay with a cheap imitation.” Vanitas snorts before flipping his attention to Isa. “The old man was wrong about a lot. But you know what he had right? The worlds are relying on fake light. It’s all just cheap data, carbon copies of what the world is actually supposed to be. What kind of shitty hero keeps fighting for something that’s draining the real light?”

“I’m sorry dude, I can’t actually take you seriously in that outfit. What happened to that skirt you used to wear?” I lift an eyebrow and am met with the backhand of a Keyblade. The blow knocks me back and the spiked blades tear into my cheek. Lea barely manages to catch me and we both stagger.

Effectively though, he’s confirmed everything we thought and his attention is off of Skuld. I’d call that no small victory.

“So you want things to get real, fast then?” Lea snarls, shoulders tightening. He allows me a fraction of a second to regain my footing before he tears away from me and summons his own Keyblade. Green eyes fall on me for a moment, thin brows knitting together before he turns back to Vanitas, looking every bit as demonic as the boy in front of us. Lea roars, a lion’s call and dives at Vanitas’, blade cranked back. But Vanitas is twice as fierce and has zero to lose and meets him right in the middle. Where Vanitas has raw hatred on his side, Lea is clever, and feigns just in time, turning his Keyblade into Chakrams and letting them whiz straight into Vanits, who is unprepared for the shift. The boy grunts as he’s knocked back, letting out a low hissing noise in his wake. “Lay hands on my wife again.” Lea threatens and Vanitas snorts. 

“Oh, your wife.” He rolls his eyes. “How brag worthy.” He wipes the blood from Lea’s attack off of his face as Lea catches his chakrams, and there’s something so disturbing in watching a child wipe away their own blood without flinching, as though the mere act is second nature. And it’s not like I can’t relate, but that’s the worst part. I can. He shouldn’t. “Your precious wife is too stupid to tell the difference between data and what’s real. But I guess you all must be, or you’d have realized that’s what this world’s heart is made of. Sure, it functions the same, but this place lost its true heart the second the little princess who lived here passed her light on. And sure, the data functions the same. All it costs is real light.” He says. “But hey, you’re the heroes. Shouldn’t you all know that the light inside of Kingdom Hearts is being drained from each and every one of these data hearts?”

“You’re as foolish and reckless as ever. One of the current princesses of heart has examined the state of the light herself, and if anything, it is unnaturally high.” Isa scoffs.

“Because the old man gave them a little extra dose. But as long as Kingdom Hearts is pumping light into all of this data, it’s going to keep draining and draining. Light isn’t some sustainable resource. Even it has a breaking point. So why don’t you all go crawling back home and let me rid the realm of one more burden.” But Vanitas doesn’t look like he wants us to go, he looks like he wants a fight, looks like a child looking to play. 

The Claymore appears in Isa’s hands, I call upon La Luxure.

“Data or not, people live here. People depend on this light, you and the Master doesn’t get to keep committing genocide for some cause you see as righteous.” Skuld demands, a far cry from the frail woman thrust upon us. She reeks with the type of justice that moves mountains, the type Aqua dons like a crown. The type Vanitas loathes.

“Go home, last chance. Or I’ll do to you the same thing I did that other girl that was supposed to join your little club.” He leers, raising his blade to the light. “Dandelions. What a fucking joke.”

And this is all it takes to set Skuld off. Screeching like a fucking banshee, she leaps at him, whirling her Keyblade like a baton, slamming the blade straight into Vanitas’ shoulder. He buckles, knees giving way, but turns around looking every bit a feral alleycat.

“If you wanted to die all you had to do was ask.” Vanitas snarls, canine teeth bared, he’s a bolt of black as he whizzes toward her, but I’m quick and brazen enough to beat him there, Knuckles pulled into an ‘x’.

I forgot how hard this bastard hits.

With force that rivals Isa’s and speed that knocks mine out of the park, he pounds his Keyblade into my blades so hard that my teeth rattle. My eyes nearly cross as I push back, strangled grunt tumbling from my lips.

“Stupid little witch, always in the way.” Vanitas bites, teeth smashing together as he spits out the moniker. “You’re not important when I can kill her.” His golden eyes flick just behind me.

“Not an option, asshole.” I hook a leg around his knees and pull so hard we crash into the ground, and my skull throbs. White bleeds into my vision, but fortunately, this is where my better half cuts in. Vanitas climbs up to straddle and slam a blade into me, but his stupid, smarmy face is pummeled by a blazing Keyblade. The boy wails, proud and defiant as he’s thrown onto his back. He wipes away another mouthful of blood, as quick to push himself back up onto shaky legs as I am. 

The pain pounds into him--me, us-- like a heartbeat, the physical agony pumping like assurance through each pulse point. If he’s being smacked around, he’s doing something right, if he’s being beaten down, he’s got a purpose.

Momentarily, I wonder if he will implode if he’s met with compassion, rather than opposition. But he leaves me very little time to contemplate further when he draws his blade over his head and rams it right into my shoulder.

The spike of his blade pierces straight through, narrowly missing bone.

My knees snap out from beneath me.

Skuld leaps, whirling through the air with all of Kairi’s grace and all of Xion’s ferocity. Her arm whips out and the flat of her blade smacks Vanitas across the chest, effectively yanking his blade out of me. Which hurts a lot more than being impaled in the first place. She is quick to strike, and though Vanitas parrys her like it is second nature, the expert placement of her attacks are overwhelming. Had I not seen her broken and malnourished, I’d hardly have believed that she was mere months ago. When Vanitas strikes, Skuld blocks, when Vanitas tries to knock her off her feet, she leaps. When Vanitas pulls his blade over his head and screams, rushing her with darkness swirling around his blade, she ducks, rolls and locks her legs around his ankle. A quick yank and a grunt, plant Vanitas on his ass and leave him as easy prey for Isa, who is, although the slowest of us, is the hardest hitter. Claymore pressed between his palms, he slams it toward Vanitas.

Smarmy bastard or not, it’s still impressive as hell to watch Vanitas deflect, knock Isa’s blade aside and do a backward somersault away, coming up on one knee, shoulders heaving as he looks at the group of us. 

His narrowed eyes flash amongst the group, a smirk tugs at his thin lips.

And his heart pours into mine, every single weakness he notices in any of us. He gets high as he fantasizes about each individual way to take us down. 

He doesn’t stand a chance in hell.

I find a grenade in my pocket and hike it straight at his head. He dodges of course, but not the entirety of the explosion. I know because I feel the frustration pouring from his heart as he flies at the wall with the rest of the debris. The smoke clears, he leaps off the wall, spring loaded and locked as he cranks his Keyblade back. It crashes into my Knuckle, I uppercut, jabbing my other fist into the side of his abdomen. He flat out drops his blade, grabs a fistful of my hair and throws me back into the wall.

My head reels. I’m missing hair. Probably. I feel for the spot he snatched on the top of my head and curse. That’s going to take a hell of a lot of strategic braiding to cover up, bastard. 

Fortunately and unfortunately, Vanitas is pissed and not finished with me. 

Lea goes charging at him, but Vanitas snorts as he picks up his blade.

“Oh no, I think one on one is just fine.” A dark barrier bursts, blocking Vanitas from the world’s heart, but also blocking Lea from me. And this suits Vanitas, who hardly gives a quarter of a fuck anymore, about carrying out Xigbar’s mission, just fine. “Stupid, stupid little witch thinks she can play with the big kids.” He leers, shoulders swaggering as he strides toward me, dragging his blade back through the dirt, smirk growing with each predatory step he takes. 

“I already told you, dickhead. It’s stupid slut.” I remind him, tugging a Potion from my pocket and downing it. As quickly as I can, I start plucking stray pieces of grass from the dirt beneath us, trying very hard not to move with anything but perfect, silent, fluidity.

“You think your little spells make you look so big and bad. And those stupid little toys you have in your hand...What a fucking joke. I don’t get why Xigbar’s so obsessed with you unless he’s just looking for something to warm his bed.” Vanitas snarls, almost elated at the mere thought of toying with me, knowing very well that I’m secluded, trapped. 

“Does it bug you that yet another old bastard with golden eyes only counts you as second best?” I smirk. His eyes flash, cold and dangerous. He takes another step over and instead of smashing his blade down into me, kicks me straight in the abdomen.

I recoil, curling over as the wind is knocked right out of me…

But I’m almost fucking done. 

He crouches over, dropping his blade as he grabs another handful of my hair and tilts my head back, not noticing the way my hand dips into my pocket. He regards my exposed neck with the same intensity that a vampire might, narrows his eyes, then chuckles.

“You are so soft.” He breathes, leaning in closer. “So weak. So small. Just like that other girl. Do you like what Ventus did to her? Do you want me to do the same to you?” 

“Triple dog dare you.” I whisper and slam my handful--a grenade and a Blessed Gem-- onto the circle I have plucked out in the grass. 

Cluster bombs are nasty.

Both Vanitas and I take the brunt, but the sheer force of the hit disintegrates his barrier.

I’m choking, coughing on ash and soot as it rains into my hair. Lea’s at my side, suddenly helping me up as Skuld goes wild, a flurry, a nightmare against a very overwhelmed Vanitas. They’re near evenly matched with Vanitas’ fresh injury, and much as I’d love to be at her side, wailing into him, it’s all I can do to lean into Lea, who smooths his hands down my neck and tender head.

“You wanna level on what the hell your plan was, sweetheart?” Lea asks, assessing my hair and face with all of the affection I can handle and then some 

“He was trying to figure out how to break all of us so I broke him first.” I answer. “How fucked is my hair?”

“You know teamwork is a virtue?” He sighs, ruffling through my hair as he fusses with my now broken braids. 

“Meh.” I shrug. “Keeping you alive is kind of my priority, poophead.” 

“You’re impossible.” Lea grumbles. “And your hair is fucked. You’ll have to be really strategic about how you put your hair up in a bun.” He kisses the top of my head and the threads of who I am start to unravel. Oh how easy it is for him to make me come undone. 

The click, clack, clang of metal devouring metal has both of our heads snapping up, eyes tearing away from each other to watch Vanitas pummel Skuld. Her footing is strong as all hell, and she’s got every ounce of her weight pushed into blocking his attack, but that’s just the problem. She’s mere ounces of a girl, and he’s the filthiest piece of trash in this garbage world. He jabs his blade forward, straight into Skuld’s chest, where I know nasty scars flower. Her eyes go huge and pupils become tiny as the wind is torn straight from her lungs and she buckles over. He knew, I discover. Somehow, he knew exactly where to hit.

The saliva in my mouth sours. Xigbar. 

Maybe he didn’t pull her apart himself, but hell if he didn’t relay this useful little nugget to his puppet.

I push myself up a little to go chase him, but Lea snares his arm around me, locking me into place.

“Let me go.” I beg.

“Fat chance.” He snorts. I could punch him. Can’t he see I can do this, can’t he tell that my alchemy was the singular thing that did any damage to that rat bastard of a boy?

“Lea, this is my fight, this is my burden.” I complain.

“And if you don’t stop trying to go at it alone, it’s gonna be me planning your damn funeral!” He snaps. My face burns.

The whiplash of Isa’s roar instantly has us turning again, away from each other, away from the shame and the frustration pumping through me. I can do this, I haven’t suddenly been rendered incapable in the past year and if Lea could only see that--

Isa dashes at Vanitas, Claymore tearing the dirt, a reaper’s scythe promising death and decay. Vanitas cackles like some sort of demented monster and lunges forward, only to be met by a beast of a blade that Isa wields like air. The Claymore pounds into Vanitas, one, two, three and each hit could shatter the earth, could crumble the world’s very heart. 

Vanitas barely buckles. Instead, he laughs like a fucking lunatic, slicing back at Isa, getting in every little jab he can manage, a cut to Isa’s exposed forearm, a stab aimed close to the ‘x’ shaped scar on his head. Vanitas goes to slam the spiky Keyblade into Isa’s boot, but Isa straight up bats the kid away like he’s a fly.

Like he is me.

Heart palpitations force increasingly more panic through me. Lea thinks I’m weak, Lea thinks I’m small and stupid and easily corrupted. Lea thinks if I actually get a shot at reigning victorious, I’m going to do exactly what I did in Scala ad Caelum, take off sprinting and leave him and our tiny world and our tiny friends behind. Because he doesn’t get what it feels like to be made for something bigger, he doesn’t understand being part of a plan or purpose that he didn’t concoct, he can’t look me in the eye and watch me be successful because how can he come back from being the villain if he’s not a hero and how does he get to be a hero if I don’t need saving? 

Vanitas leaps back up, within the beat of the heart, springloaded, flying at Isa with reckless abandon. Vanitas is strong and cunning and swift, Vanitas has no weak points, but he’s wild, losing his mind as negativity spirals like my own storm clouds around him, tiny, impossible squalls that he can’t see through. I feel his ache and his desperation--or is it mine, can I even tell the difference?-- pulsating off of him in waves as he smacks at Isa, hitting anything and everything his scrappy little fists and his biting blade can. His control splinters, but on the wild, manic high of his violence, Vanitas rides and even Isa struggles to keep up. Blow after blow, scrape after scrape, puncture after puncture, Vanitas becomes a cackling mess, hardly able to keep himself together, but still unable to be broken. I’ve never seen the literality of drunk on power like this. 

And Lea needs to understand that this is not me. I watch Vanitas’ mania and know where my line is drawn, know that my thirst for knowledge isn’t wicked or wrong and Skuld is right, I deserve to know any and everything. Whether that means interrogating Xigbar, or venturing forward ahead of where others can go into Daybreak Town, no matter what that entails, if I can save my friends, it doesn’t look like this, it doesn’t look like this hysteria or this darkness, if he would only learn to trust me and let me for once take the lead.

Vanitas knocks Isa’s blade clear out of his hands. The Claymore goes spiralling back. Beside me, Lea curses under his breath. 

“Can you really even call yourself a guard dog if you can’t protect that little thing?” Vanitas snorts, pointing his blade at where Skuld is struggling to even sit up straight. “You’ve been more of a pain than I could’ve expected. Guess we should’ve chosen a different Dandelion to pluck.” Vanitas’ smirk becomes feral as his lips curl over his teeth. He cranks his blade back, and I watch the instant reaction in Isa’s eyes. He’s not even thinking properly, coherently, he just moves. He puts his hand out, calls his blade and with one desperate swing, knocks Vanitas’ to the ground.

None of us notice for a moment, the new sound of the blade chiming. For a moment, it’s just Isa protecting Skuld and nothing is off and no one--especially not me--is holding their breath. 

But this is just a fleeting moment, because a sword isn’t always a Claymore. Apparently, sometimes it’s a key.

The blade in Isa’s hand is still incredibly long stocky, still with a spiky, rounded handle, still with a thick, flat base. But it’s more jagged than sleek, almost like Riku’s but with a noticeable concave shape, a curved blade and a large, crescent ‘key’ at the tip of it. 

I can’t help the awful weight that presses down onto my shoulders, or the grotesque jealousy that curls lips over my teeth so severely that it smears plum lipstick. 

I am the only fighting human being in our group that cannot call a Keyblade to their hand. In this group of everyone who is so special and so unique for their particular role in the universe, it is blatant how I fit in, like a sore thumb. Oh hell, please let this be a nightmare.

Vanitas hits the ground, but his eyes find mine, bright, alight, excited.

“That wasn’t my mind.” He breathes, even as he is knocked unto his ass.

“You will leave her alone!” Isa snaps, still looking rather like a raging werewolf as he stands in Skuld’s defense, but as quick as he fixated on her, Vanitas is a leach and he has found a new food source. Snickering, low and menacing under his breath, Vanitas’ head rolls to the side as he completely turns from Isa and Skuld and toward me and Lea.

“Is that why he sent me after you? Cuz you know too much, witch?” There’s something quite unnatural about the way he looks at me and if that weren’t distressing, the way he laughs after would be. “You think you’re the only one who knows how to pull a connection?” He scoffs and rolls his eyes, turning flat onto his back.

‘You’re a fucking novice.’ Vanitas’ voice is a wicked melody in my head and immediately, darkness pushes into me, blackened thoughts charring the edges of my mind. Look what a safe and happy home Lea has found, sun, moon and stars. And the sun is a star as well and won’t it taste so delightful for Lea to finally have an equal, not a burden, not some stupid little girl he’s futilely trying to keep in the dark. Wouldn’t it be right and well for me to slink back into the nightmare I belong in? Isn’t it a funny thing that light itself would choose Isa over me?

Isn’t it funny that Lea once chose Isa over me?

Isn’t it funny how little I

M  
A  
T  
T  
E  
R  
?

I clap a hand over my mouth, shoving down the urge to vomit. This is new, this is repulsive. I can’t take this, the way my bones feel self igniting and my flesh seems to crawl. Dear Twilight, get me out of this head, get me out of this skin I wear.

“Rueki?” Lea begs, tilting my face toward him, but I shove him away, grappling far from him. Lea leaps to his feet, Keyblade in his shaking fist. His first move is toward Vanitas, an eruption, I can almost predict the flurry Lea will unleash on the boy in an attempt to break him. 

But ever the hero, he just turns, aims his Keyblade at the world’s heart, and with an array of bright light, seals the heart off from Vanitas.

The boy’s golden eyes find the ceiling of the room, he just chuckles.

“How about you stop laughing…” Lea takes demanding steps toward Vanitas, leaving angry bootprints in the dirt in his wake. “And lay off my wife.” He orders, shoving the tip of his blade into Vanitas’ sternum, not hard, but enough to press a normal human being.

Vanitas is far from that.

“No wonder he wants you to get a taste of the light. You are pitch fucking black.” And with the snap of his fingers, Vanitas collapses into a ball of light and disappears, leaving nothing but held breath and trembling shoulders in his wake. 

Our eyes search, cyan to green, green to sea, sea to gold, gold to cyan. 

“Isa…” Lea chokes.

“Rueki…” Skuld mutters. Isa turns to her, she bites her lip and looks at him with the tiniest of smiles. “Look at you.” She brushes straight over me, like I’m barely a blip on the radar.

I taste bile. 

“There’s got to be some sort of mistake.” Isa shakes his head, but I see that tiny little smile plucking up the edges of his lips, taunting me.

Me, the one less worthy than him.

How the actual fuck is that man more worthy of anything on this dirt than me?

There really is no rhyme or reason. No goddamn moral order in this realm. No fuckin karmic relief.

Lea’s eyes find mine and I look away, curling in on myself.

“Rueki?” He asks. I shake my head.

“I want to go home.” I murmur.

“Yes, that would be nice.” Isa agrees, looking shaken as he observes the blade in his hand. 

“Well, you should probably just accept that this isn’t a mistake. Don’t be weird. You’re a good person, you’ve earned this.” Skuld grins at Isa. I want to tear every single scar from my body and drown her in the mountains reasons he’s not worthy. 

“Earned.” Isa examines the word with his lips, mulling it over just so. Experimentally he takes a swing with his Keyblade. 

His. Keyblade. 

My hands ball into fists.

“The universe must be so forgiving.” The voice that comes out of me isn’t mine. It’s that hollow, empty voice I recognize from this past year as the thing inside of me breaks free. 

“It must be.” Isa is quick to parry. Lea comes over to me and crouches down, trying very hard to be tender as he kisses my hair but it’s not enough and I wonder--am I actually too far gone?

Because I want to swat him aside, I want to tell him that I could’ve won the fight faster if I would’ve been allowed to fight Vanias on my own. I am singularly worth more than every fucking Keyblade in this realm and if all of my friends could stop treating them like trophies then maybe I wouldve have fallen through the cracks and--

“We should get ice cream. Rueki led us to the heart, Skuld, you wailed so hard on Vanitas, Isa you got a Keyblade.” Lea praises.

“And you sealed off the world.” Skuld finishes, beaming at him with all the brightness of the stars in the sky. “I agree, it would be nice to celebrate.”

Fuck that. And fuck this.

“I want to go home.” I repeat.

“Yeah, let’s.” Lea agrees.

It is very obvious that home still looks like the clock tower with his best friend, a pretty girl and a puppet trying to fill its own void.

I’m not certain which is my role to play anymore.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well thanks to COVID-19 I'll be out of work until the middle of April. Hope this chapter is finding all of you guys well, these are wild times we live in but hopefully this story can keep providing a fun distraction for you guys. In the meantime I'm really excited to have some uninterrupted time to focus on this story!

XV.

Skuld is fast but I grab handfuls of her hair and throw her into a wall watching as she crumbles like a glass house. Kairi flutters straight to the ground, chin smashing against the tile floor. Lea’s elemental weakness damn near snaps him in half. Even a big, bad, moon shaped Keyblade doesn’t grant Isa immunity from grenades.

My shoulders heave, rising and falling with each tremendous breath I take.

“You proved your point.” Kairi grumbles, spreading herself across the ground, brow covered in tiny droplets of sweat. “You’re strong, can we be done with this.”

“Sure, when you figure out how to fix your footing.”

It’s a challenge I couldn’t turn down, and it started as just some stupid joke. While Cid toggles with data, searching for which hearts might be next on Vanitas’ list of targets --since he's gone silent on my end since discovering our connection, other than the poisonous pang of darkness, from time to time --the rest of us train in the castle basement.

It’s brave that Skuld is even venturing down here, it’s impressive that she’s not even panicking or trembling as she retreats back into a place that she once knew great pain inside. At least, that’s what everyone says, as they casually forget I share a home and have been expected to forgive a man who brutalized me for the better part of a year.

Fuck it, whatever, its not a big deal. It sure wasn’t brave when Skuld made some sort of stupid joke about how we should do Keyblade Masters versus not, to prepare me for what the Foretellers would be capable of. But everyone laughed like it was funny and clever and good ole Rueki is hard in the heart, she can take a joke. 

But I’m not the one who looks like a joke at the end of this.

The walls of the practice room are covered in alchemic graffiti, my collar bone is broken and there is a massive gash across the top of my thigh, but I’m the one standing and these are wounds a cure spell can mend. My hand is planted into the wall, my knees are collapsing, but I am standing nonetheless, which is better than what I can say for any of the Keyblade Masters.

Who’s not ready for what Luxu has in store now?

“You still rely really heavily on alchemy, for someone trying to cut back.” Skuld grumbles. 

“Oh, you know, just trying to prepare myself to take on Foretellers. Don’t be salty because you ate the tail end of an Icefall.” A breezy smile slides onto my lips, like for the first time I have a leg up. I think it has more to do with the fact that I currently don’t give a quarter of a fuck and am no longer interested in agreeing with another human being that they are better than me.

I was right. I am stronger, and I am not less without a stupid, fucking key shaped sword in my hand. I’m just as worthy of the light, that light I’m constantly deprived of.

“You wanna at least cure us, Ice Princess?” Lea rubs the back of his neck, brows knitting together.

“It’s your own damn fault for picking a fight with her. You’d have done your mom proud, kid.” Cid enters the room, flicking his toothpick. “She always said shorter people were the reckoning, ya’ll being closer to hell and all.”

My friends laugh and I cast a soft ‘cure’ spell on the group to avoid social interaction. To distract from the fact that I’m not in a joking mood, I’m not especially interested in playful banter. I’m feeling nihilistic, hide in my room, isolate like the worst kind of spoiled brat. I’m feeling sit in the rain curled in on myself and sulk like it’s my day job. I’m not happy for Isa, I’m not excited about anyone in the room. I’m not--anything.

I’ve never felt so bleak and empty in my entire life. Not even with Kairi gone.

It wasn’t my idea to go and see my godfather for help, in other circumstances I might be glad Isa suggested it, but now it’s just another set of prying eyes that think they know better. Cid’s a damn genius on the computer, I’m grateful for him, but if I count the times we’ve seen each other in the past two years, I can directly correlate them to times I’ve had a breakdown. That’s hardly fair to either of us. 

Still, he’s made progress, he has discovered which worlds have data in place of a heart, and that is good for the group and I am thankful. Not tired, not spent, not throbbing all the way through my brain.

Wonderland, Agrabah, Dwarf Woodlands, Castle of Dreams, Beast’s Castle, The Destiny Islands. Apparently Enchanted Dominion would have been on that list, had Vanitas not already obliterated it and a few more I’ve never been to-- Game Central Station and Timeless River. There might be more, it wouldn’t be out of the question, Cid’s still got plenty of data to pluck through, but six worlds to protect is six worlds to protect, that’s plenty on our plates.

Empathetically, I’ve alerted Sora, Roxas, Ven and Xion who are leading quests to The Destiny Islands, Beast’s Castle, Castle of Dreams and Dwarf Woodlands, respectively, since Lea’s already effectively sealed off Wonderland. As for the rest of us, it’s been established by everyone who isn’t me, that poor Rueki is only strong enough to harass and needs to be infantilized on every other front. So I follow with a leash wrapped around my throat and agree when Lea and Skuld say that my heart should be examined. Naminé agrees vehemently, insistent that this is out of her realm of abilities but possibly not out of the realm of science. Ienzo of course agreed to meet and help figure out what can be done to give me a little more control of my heart. I don’t know what I will do with this control or how I will be told to feel about it.

“Smile, kid. Those are what you young people call dad jokes.” Cid orders me. I offer him a half hearted smile and toy with the bit of my hair that is down. The sloppy bun I have pulled up using the top section of my hair at least strategically hides my bald spot.

“You get any more info for us?” I ask quickly, stretching my arm across my chest. “Because if not I should probably see what Ienzo’s up to.”

“You’re in a hell of a hurry to dip out.” He accuses. I shrug. 

“My broken collar bone just healed, I’m in pain. Cut me a break.” I whine.

“Word to the wise, you might wanna try dodging an attack sometime. And here I was, thinking that group Sora fought was damn evil, when you’re just bad at not getting smacked. What was it? Battalion something...” He scrunches up his face, trying to recall. Lea barks out a laugh, Isa snickers. “Well poo poo on me for not remembering the cult you bunch of fools were in.”

A genuine smile struggles to life on my face. Cid is perfect, no matter what else happens today, that I will stand by.

“Are you absolutely certain you’re not Rueki’s biological father?” Isa asks, smug look decorating his features, which means he’s probably already done pissed Cid off. “I’ve never met anyone else near as outrageous.” 

“Dude, we’re right here.” I sigh, turning to Cid with an exhausted look. He shakes his head.

“I told you to stay away from those boys. Nothing but trouble, the both of them.” Cid tells me.

“I agree.” Lea grins, turning away from Skuld and Isa to swoop in and sweep me into his arms. “Trouble till the end. Your leg’s not bleeding anymore though, so I can’t feel too sorry for you, now can I beautiful?” 

“You’re such a suck ass.” I shrug him off, setting a hand on my hip. 

“And you’re just an ass. Whatever crawled into you when we ran into Vanitas sucks. Let’s get it out of your heart.” Lea kisses my temple softly, hardly deterred by my attitude. It makes me want to push him harder. 

This is Vanitas’ fault. Vanitas’. Not mine, I love Lea and I am perfectly okay with the guidelines I have been given by every single person in my life. 

“Your heart especially could use a shot of light.” Kairi smiles, squeezing my hand as she finishes peeling herself off the ground. 

“Why especially you?” Cid asks. I clear my throat and look very pointedly up at the ceiling tiles. “What are you keeping from me, girl?”

“That’s classified.” Lea says quickly.

“Nothing of import.” Isa agrees.

“I’m gonna skin the whole lot of you.” Cid sighs.

“Trust me when I say this one is better being need to know.” I bite my lips.

“You come back dead again and I’ll kill your husband.” Cid threatens. Lea chokes.

“Why me?” He pouts.

“Cuz she wants to disappear for a year after writing me a goodbye letter, this one values her life for shit.” Cid shakes his head.

“I really love everyone talking about me like I’m not even in the room.” I snap.

“Stop acting foolish, and you wouldn’t need to be publicly shamed.” My godfather proclaims.

Okay, fine, he’s right. Everyone’s right, I’m a mess.

“Well, Ienzo’ll probably be ready for ya by now if you don’t want to get out and stretch your legs first.” Cid says. “Kids these days, you all spend too much time inside.”

“To the kids who are always outside, fighting monsters.” Kairi teases.

“Cid’s right. It’d be fun to, you know, walk around our old home together.” Lea insists, setting his hands on my hips. I don’t melt into a puddle at his touch, but the offer is tantalizing. It’s been seventy two hours since we left Wonderland and I haven’t gotten a speck of alone time with Lea, though I know I need it. It’s usually the trick when it comes to staying sane. “Besides, Isa and I want to show Skuld some of the outside of the town. Did you know she still hasn’t tried sea salt ice cream?”

Did you know I don’t give a quarter of a fuck, is what I want to ask, but I keep my teeth clamped down on my lips and offer a sideways smile.

“My heart’s a fucking mess. I need to deal with that before I can justify playing hooky. Some other time though.” Some other time when I can actually pretend to be a newlywed and not just get stuck playing third wheel.

“Ouch.” Lea chuckles. “The rain check from hell.”

“I could just tell you to fuck off.” I shrug.

“You’re such a dick.” He says with absolutely zero malice as he squeezes my shoulders. “But you’re right. Gotta work on yourself, and I’ll be right here when you’re done.” He tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear. 

“Have fun.” I say, squeezing his sides with every bit of pleasedontleaveme I can manage.

“We will.” Isa replies. I lean over from where Lea is still holding me, lift a finger and flip him off.

“Get fucked, peaches.” I scrunch my nose.

“And that is why we’ll be at peace without you, sugar.” Isa counters. Immediately my mood jumps off the deepest end. 

“It’s definitely smarter though, keeping yourself in check.” Skuld says. “If only you could shut off that empathy link altogether.” 

“I guess I just don’t get why she can’t.” Kairi says, scratching her chin. Skuld makes a face.

“Back in my day, we at least educated kids about magic.” She shakes her head. 

“I’ve studied magic.” I reply with narrowed eyes. Skuld bristles, raising an eyebrow, so I turn away, uninterested in explaining to her that she doesn’t just get to be a bitch whenever. “I’ve studied a lot.” 

“Don’t listen, Kai. The old lady here just needs to harp on about something.” Lea winks. Skuld laughs loudly and bumps him with her hip, just as he detaches from me. A wicked grin lights Lea’s features as he bumps her hip back. There it is again. No more emotional shutdown, no nihilism, just violent rage and searing jealousy.

“Well screw you too, whippersnapper.” She laughs and just like that, Lea throws his arms around her and Isa’s shoulders, bidding us farewell. Kairi makes a move after them then skids to a stop, spinning around on her heel.

“So, to the lab?” She asks.

“Yeah, you go ahead, I just wanna catch up with the old man real quick.” I wave a hand. Kairi nods enthusiastically, twiddling her fingers at Cid. 

“Sure, see you for dinner, Cid!” And with that, she takes off bounding and I lean back into the wall of the room, pinching my eyes shut.

“I’m gonna assume you didn’t actually want to catch up?” Of course he has to poke me where I’m weak, of course someone needs to tap at my paper thin walls like they can see straight through them. I drag my teeth over my lips, face contorting. “You’re a shitty liar, Rueki.” 

Thank Twilight I’m not looking at him, I don’t think my heart can bear it.

“It’s just too much togetherness. It’s not that Kairi can’t understand why I’m broken or that Isa’s a fucking trashcan but aparently more worthy of a trashcan than me or that Lea’s got this new best friend who is pretty and clever and never breaks a sweat.” I say, more for my benefit than his. “It’s not a problem. Not at all. I’m just in the wrong, again and every single person around me is right.”

“I think I’m missing something, here.” Cid begins. My hands start to shake. “Kid…” 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.” I breathe, unable to keep anything from spilling out. Not with this man making me feel every bit a child. “I...I’m not good at the hero stuff.” 

“So quit that shit, and just stay home. Mind your business and let the Keybearers do their job. Twilight knows it’d give me some peace of mind.” He pleads. 

“I don’t get that chance this time.” I confess. “I’m in the driver’s seat this time. And I’m not good at expectations.”

“Set yourself some boundaries.” He orders. I’m shaking still. He can tell, because he heaves a sigh, I hear his footsteps and he quickly twines his arms around me. I don’t even try to stop him, I just cling to him with held breath and tight limbs. “You choose what you get to give people, kiddo. You’ve got bigger balls than that. Take the seat you wanna take, do the things you want and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re doing something wrong. We’re all doing shit wrong.”

I decide not to tell him that me doing something wrong means me going dark, to everyone around me. That’s a lot to ask anyone to stomach, let alone my godfather. 

“I think...I think I trusted myself too much last time. I don’t think I really thought that I could do something wrong if I was on the right side and then Kairi….and Sora…” Dear Twilight, I’m straight up vibrating and if I don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to be a sad, sobbing disaster.

“But they’re back now. You can’t go blaming yourself for stuff that ended up being reversible.” 

“How would you…” I stop myself for a moment, unsure of where to go or how to phrase. “I grieved her for a year. And now that she’s back I don’t know how to look at her anymore.” I shake my head. “Why’d she leave me, how the fuck could she leave me. How am I supposed to look at her and not be pissed as hell at her?” How do I look at her and not scream that she left my world pitch black and didn’t even have the courtesy to pass her light to me? How do I tell her that I’m still starving for said light and I’m certain I could burn even Vanitas away if she would just grant me it? How do I tell her I loved her and needed her so much, I put her above everyone save for the man I married and she just thought it would be acceptable to go? When I was already so broken? How the hell does she think she can come back and bring hell with her when I was healing, tentatively, but healing? I learned to live without her, I shouldn’t have had to, but I did and I was fine and--

The ground we stand on now is so shaky. Getting drunk together felt like closure, not reuniting. She’s perfectly okay and never once felt the pain of losing her best friend, I endured every second of it and now, my one, my rock, my Lea is drifting so far away from me. He’s worried about me wandering away, but what about him? What am I supposed to do when he’s slipping through my fingers and every move I make to close the distance is a slap in the face to my heart, to my boundaries, to what I hold important in my own heart?

I want Skuld to like me for me. Because she is the epitome of what I wish I could be, despite the past. I don’t want to have to want her to like me so that both of my husband’s best friends don’t hate me. That’s not even fair, I shouldn’t have to stomach such stakes. I’m a fucking atrocity, but even I don’t deserve this. 

“Hey, hey, come on.” Cid rubs my hair and I feel abysmal for shucking this impossible weight onto his shoulders. His best friends died and not only did he have to be functional, he had to raise me. I should be grateful, Kairi is back, I should cast this year aside like everyone else has done. Maybe I should even talk to Riku about how he’s handling the oddity of all of this. Surely Riku knows what it feels like to have an older man’s expectations that you don’t want to succumb to hanging over your head. But Riku, despite his age, is far more grown than me and--

And he’s not the fucking dumping grounds for the darkness of so many other hearts. Now, with Vanitas shuttling his pitch black soul into me, is there actually any salvation?

“I’m sorry.” I mumble, eyes fluttering open.

“The hell are you sorry for?” He asks me. Everything, I want to say but instead I just shrug. “I can’t imagine what I would do if your mom and dad just strolled in like no time at all had passed. It’s weird as hell, but your life has gotten weird as hell, kiddo.” Cid tells me and I don’t know if it’s supposed to be comforting but in his own Cid way it is. It’s probably about as graceful as I was able to soothe Neku. We’re just a pattern, him and me and the teenage boys I’ve adopted, not sure how to make the world any less tragic but trying with the few social skills we’ve been given. “But it is a damn blessing. Those two love you a whole lot. You’ve got a good friend, and a husband who gives a shit something fierce. You’re allowed to talk to them too. Something tells me that might be easier on you than sitting here crying at me.” 

“I’m not crying.” I say quickly. Rubbing my fingers across my palms, my teeth across my lips. “I should get to Ienzo. And Kairi. Or someone’s gonna wonder why I’m acting like a crazy person.” 

“We both know there ain’t no acting involved in that.” Cid says. I smirk and swat him. “You okay for real though?” He asks, patting my shoulders. 

“Yeah.” I lie and instantly regret it. “I mean no, but like, I’ll figure it out, you know?”

“You always do, don’tcha?” 

I do, but I don’t tell him the means I have to go through to put half the shit in my life together. Instead I promise him that we’ll be back for dinner and he tells me he’ll keep sorting through the data and I head to the lab where Kairi, Naminé and Ienzo are talking. Even is tinkering with something in the corner and the only thing that sounds appealing after losing my shit is back handing someone else with it.

“You haven’t died yet?” I ask.

“No thanks to your husband.” Even replies snootily.

“Isn’t he like a thousand?” I ask Ienzo, gesturing to his father figure of sorts. He bites back the tiniest of smiles and sighs, like I’m a very exhausting toddler.

“Not nearly as old as Braig, as it turns out.” Ienzo says, rubbing his hands together. “Naminé says you have concerns about the nature of your heart.”

“Well, Vanitas isn’t exactly a pleasant person to be around, let alone in his head. Kid’s pretty fucked up.” I say. Of all of us would be orphans with unprepared father figures Vanitas was definitely in the worst shape. 

“No doubt.” Ienzo nods. “Even’s readying a device to hook you up to, we should be set to go here shortly. But I must say, I’m surprised Lea isn’t here to watch over you. The two of you were quite attached last time I saw you.”

I don’t mean to, but I bark out a miserable, self deprecating, hollow laugh.

“Yeah um...so he’s made a new friend.” I bite my lip.

“Worse than Isa? I was under the impression he was living with you two.” Ienzo makes a face.

“She’s the girl Ansem tortured. Subject X.” Abruptly, Even drops something, Ienzo’s mouth pops open, Naminé bows her head as though this is somehow her burden to bear. “She also happens to be a Keybearer from the ancient past. You wanna know why she disappeared from her cell? Xigbar took her. And proceeded to tell her all the ways that I’m somehow gonna turn into a dumpster fire and help him and his evil little friends. It’s been a fun time in our house.” 

“Are you incapable of not getting yourself into trouble?” Even scoffs.

“Apparently.” I mutter. “Regardless, it’s impressive enough that she even came to this world, Lea and Isa are showing her around town, but I don’t think it would be in anyone’s best interest for her and Isa to be here. In the place she was held. With Ansem somewhere around.”

“Yes, I’m inclined to agree.” Ienzo chokes. 

“I think you hardly know the extent of the situation if you’re throwing the word torture around so freely.” Even rolls his eyes as I head over to him and hop up on some sort of examination table.

“I was the one who assessed her damage. Looked like your boss fucked her up good.” I reply, scathingly, even as he wraps something around my arm. 

“Are you so certain it was my mentor, or yours?” He asks. When I lift an eyebrow, he gets this icy cold, disgusting little smirk on his face. “Oh yes, the princess and the witch have been all too forthcoming about the way Braig has been pulling your strings. Or would you prefer I call him Luxu?”

My face goes hot, and though I don’t mean to, I zap Even. I hardly regret it, even as he yelps. 

“You’re a bunch of fucking traitors.” I snap at Naminé and Kairi who both recoil on themselves, neither of them having ever been on this side of my attitude. 

“We were just filling Ienzo in, truly, Rueki, this was nothing hostile or underhanded. He needed to be made aware for the sake of your heart’s status.” Naminé sputters out, face somehow paler than ever. 

“Even’s just being an asshole, we wouldn’t throw you under the bus like the that!” Kairi promises. And she’s probably right, because Even is an asshole and Kairi does love me but--

No, Cid’s right, I just need to talk to her, not think shitty, blaming thoughts over something she can’t take back.

Maybe if people wanted to stop being blamed though, they should stop kicking me where it hurts, when I’m down. 

“Then you can go straight back to eating Ansem’s ass in silence.” I snap.

“The nerve on such an insolent--” This time, when I spark him again, it is intentional. He glares up at me, ice in his massive eyes. “You are a petulant brat, and your lack of control on your magic is embarrassing and rudimentary at best. Stick to alchemy and stop embarrassing those of us who have the discipline to master an element.” 

“Even.” Ienzo sighs.

“I can hold my own.” I protest. “And I do wonder…” I snatch at the lapels of Even’s lab coat, lips pursed. “Do you still have nightmares about being devoured by flames or do you need a reminder? I’m more than happy to synthesize a Brimstone.” 

He pries my hands off of his coat and I’m swiftly reminded that this is not someone I need to be making such violent, tooth and nail threats against. He’s just a man. A sad old man and I’m the one with the problem where I can’t separate an actual threat from just intense dislike. 

My hands fold to my sides, I look up at the ceiling. Me being a cunt or not, I’m not going to apologize to Even. Fuck him. But maybe now is the time to shut my damn mouth.

“Um...Rueki…” Kairi’s at my side now, reaching for my hand. I let her take my hand into hers and savor how soft her skin is against mine, against the scars my own fingernails have left in my palms. “You’re not yourself.” 

“Impolite, volatile, and an absolute disgrace to anyone who considers themselves an intellectual, I’d hardly consider this out of character.” Even mutters. I chomp the inside of my cheek.

“I think that’s enough, you’ve both taken your shots.” Ienzo shakes his head.

“Yes, this is hardly helpful.” Naminé rubs her palms together. “And when I’m the one who...when I’m the one who opened Rueki’s heart to this type of interaction, I would like to see some sort of resolution. This was not my intention, it’s gone on long enough and I don’t want this pain to affect you any further.” 

“You know I don’t blame you, Nam.” I remind her as Even wraps something around the arm on the side Kairi is on. “You do know that, right?”

She doesn’t answer me.

“Vanitas is toxic to you. And there was…” It’s funny, because I don’t particularly count Naminé as one of the people closest to me. She’s my friend of course, but it’s impressive how she’s able to convey in just one guilt ridden look that she knows about my brief interaction with Xigbar, after Skuld relayed some of the past to us.

And of course she does, it’s a memory now.

A distant, far off, mistake of a memory. 

“I don’t think it’s safe, your heart being as vulnerable as it is.” Naminé shakes her head, fair hair brushing her cheeks. 

“And the last thing you need is Vanitas pouring darkness into you, if Skuld’s right and you are where all of Sora, Roxas, Ven and Xion’s darkness is shuttled to, then you don’t need any extra.” Kairi smiles at me. I could tell her what I need is the most concentrated dose of light anyone can give me and that she owes it to me, but I’ve decided I’ve done enough being a brat for one day. 

“Well, if there's a failsafe in Rueki’s heart, we’ll find it.” Ienzo assures me with a gentle smile as he heads to the computer, keying in a few codes.

“Night night?” I more ask than say and Even snorts.

“Please, for such a simple process you hardly need to be sedated.” He says.

“Well fuck, I was hoping for a break from you.” I huff.

“The nerve.” He just shakes his head and stomps out the door.

“Alright, so you see, this is relatively simple, we’re just venturing into the corridors of your heart, processing it much like we might data. Does that make sense?” Ienzo asks.

“No, but very little of this does anymore. Just tell me if I can do anything.” I shrug.

“I think a clear mind is all we can ask right now, try to relax, and I should be able to walk right in.” Ienzo says. With much effort, I nod, face contorted as I look up at the ceiling. This is weird and invasive and I don’t love feeling so on display, so much like an experiment, as Ienzo click clacks away on the computer. Abruptly he stops, turns to me, to the computer and then back to me. “Rueki, are you alright?” Ienzo gapes and I lean up, looking at the computer with parted lips. Well, that’s fucking concerning. Quickly, embarrassed, I turn away, drawing a knee to my chest.

“Sure?” I ask, like I have no idea what he’s talking about and I didn’t see the big black masses staining my heart.

“Your heart is just...it’s quite vulnerable. I’m not surprised that Vanitas is able to access you, your heart isn’t just wide open, it’s as though it’s incomplete and it’s calling out for missing pieces.” Ienzo narrows his eyes as he turns back to the computer.

“Well, I mean I’m hungry, so that might account for something.” I offer softly, trying very hard to brush this aside. 

“Would you mind if I took a look?” Naminé asks, voice soft and unsure. I want to say that yes, indeed, I would mind, but no one seems to care and I shouldn’t either, I guess. It’s not like anything in my mind is a secret from Naminé. 

“Please.” Ienzo says, stepping aside for her. “Though I’m quite familiar with the science behind hearts, the chains that link them are out of my realm of experience.” He flags her over and with her arms linked behind her back and a perfectly placid expression, Naminé flutters over gazing at the screen with about as much interest as someone might offer the weather channel. She licks her pale lips and scrunches up her nose in concentration, but other than this, she doesn’t grant much expression to the computer. 

“Interesting.” She whispers. “Of course there are the channels linking her to her empathy link, but you’re quite right, her heart is incomplete.”

“That doesn’t sound possible.” I mumble, voice dripping in sarcasm.

“Well why not? If Kairi and I were two halves of a whole and the same could hold true for Ventus and Vanitas and Sora and Roxas, then why not you and--” Naminé drags her teeth over her lip.

“Yeah, exactly, who. My Nobody wasn’t a different being, when I lost my heart, there wasn’t a whole fucking...brothel inside of it like it is now.” I wave a hand in exasperation. 

“Protection spells do leave traces.” Naminé whispers. My face goes ghost white.

My gift to you, Luxu.

I tear the bands off my arms and all but fall off of the examination table, hands moving to fist the half of my hair that hangs down.

Breathe. I order myself. Breathe, don’t flip the fuck out, in light of everything, I cannot lose my shit in front of everyone, I cannot fall apart, not when these people have seen the repulsive contents of my heart, not when I’m already not trusted to make my own choices. I could rip my hair out in clumps right now and still, it wouldn’t displace the riot surging in my mind.

My fucking brain is fucking tired. Sore. Throbbing.

Breathe, in one two three, out one two three.

“It was a blip, Naminé.” I mutter shortly, curtly.

“I wasn’t attempting to distress you Rueki, I was only speculating.” Naminé pleads.

“Speculating what?” Kairi asks.

“Fucking nothing.” I snap. “My heart sucks, everyone around me is straight up shuttling darkness into me, including Vanitas, who told Ven and Sora, and I quote that he ‘is darkness’. I’m kinda going through it right now. I’m not okay, this isn’t okay, I want this new war to be done yesterday, is that fucking okay with everyone?” I throw my hands up and proceed to slam them down on the examination table.

I see myself, watch my body as it looks like it is about to splinter, glitching and unstable like static tearing through the radio.

“Can you step back?” Kairi asks, biting her lip as she reaches for my arm. Her hand is soft and warm as it closes around me. A tender thumb brushes against my skin and when I don’t budge, she yanks me into her arms, hugging me tight. “Whatever’s happening Rueki, I’m so sorry. What can I do? Let me be here with you through this.”

“We’re all here with you through this. That’s the point, we’re your friends, we have the technology to possibly help you.” Ienzo insists, patting my back very softly. Even from where my cheek is pressed to Kairi’s shoulder, I see Naminé twisting her hands, looking to the floor.

“I don’t want help.” I want them to let me rage, to wreak havoc on everything, to burn Daybreak Town to the ground, to synthesize natural disasters across that blemish of a world until anything that remains of the Foretellers or my very human weaknesses are gone. I want to remind anything and everything in this realm that they don’t get to go on some fun, childish adventure with some Keybearers and have a friendly competition. They have to fight me, the monster under the bed, the goddamn demon who will tear limb from limb anything that threatens the peace. I want this or to disappear entirely, all or nothing in this light or dark world. Push me again, I urge the realm, watch me snap in half and take every living thing with me.

Let me make something hurt the way I have, take this leash straight off my neck and let me protect everything I’m scrambling to hold.

Stop trying to put a bandaid over the gaping hole inside of me.

“Rueki…” Kairi murmurs, kissing the top of my head. “It’s okay to not be okay. You’ve fought enough, just stay home, let the others handle things until you’re needed again, you don’t need to keep straining your heart and body and mind, you’re strong enough to handle this threat, you deserve to rest.”

But I don’t want to. I can’t rest or be shoved onto the backburner. Not when I can count the times I’ve felt alive recently on one hand: breaking Scala ad Caelum, destroying Vanitas’ barrier, defeating my friends in battle. I am made for these sorts of things and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe everyone denying it, myself included, is starting a war in me. Maybe I'm only capable of dealing in extremes. Disappear for months on end or fight to the death. 

“I don’t want to rest, the only good outlet is fighting something. Everyone is shoving darkness down my throat faster than I can take anyway, I need something to take it out on.” I shake my head. Besides, even if I’m out of commission, what is that actually going to do? Xigbar can still weasel his way into my mind, Vanitas can still make me feel like shit. I’m not safe in my own mind, I don’t mind whatever it takes to get out of it.

“You want a solution.” Naminé murmurs. “Is more violence it?” She asks. I scoff, peeling myself off of Kairi.

“I don’t even know anymore.”

But in a world that deals in absolute, I don’t know if there’s too much a difference between all and nothing.

\--

Ienzo is still insistent that he wants to sift through more data in my heart, and I suppose that’s his prerogative--and Kairi and Namine’s, since they’ve opted to stick around a little longer and just meet the rest of us with ice cream later--but I still want to peel my own skin off at the mere thought, so I dip out and leave them to play on the computer. It’s easy to tell my friends that I’m going to go find my husband and Skuld and Isa, or that I want to help Cid with dinner, but I really plan to do none of that. My every intention is to walk around the town square and lose myself in the chill in the air as wind brushes my hair back.

I probably would do just that, but I approach a hillside at the edge of town and see Lea on his own, in the glare of the sun as it begins to set, and I’m predictable as ever, a slave to my temptation

“You look cold.” I murmur, sinking down to where he sits to wrap my arms around his shoulders. He doesn’t jerk up and smack me in the face like a lunatic (like I would), but rather eases into my touch. I watch his eyes flutter shut as he leans into me. 

“I run warm. Not a big deal. I guess I just don’t remember it being as cold here as it is.” Lea confesses, nuzzling my shoulder. 

“You don’t have it memorized?” I tease.

“Guess not.” He chuckles. “I missed you today.”

“You look like you had fun.” I counter, pressing my lips into a pout as I watch Skuld and Isa far off in the distance, coming back, carrying exactly enough ice cream for them and Lea. Barely visible but visible enough to displease me.

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t miss my wife.” He says. “When things settle down, let’s take another vacation.” My grip tightens a little at his words. When things settle down. Is this what it means to be married to a Keyblade wielder? I get to wait for the spaces in between the wars? Do I just have to sit around and hope it’s a by week and that I and therefore my relationship doesn’t need to suffer? 

“What if I can’t wait until then?” I whisper, kissing his neck. 

“What do you mean?” He asks.

“Can we run away?” I breathe. He snorts, I pale. “I’m not joking. Please. Vanitas’ darkness is killing me. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this weird hands off or standby shit. And if I don’t get out, I’m going to lose it.” My voice crackles, like the spark of lightning in the air, the electricity that’s starting to buzz nervously at my fingertips. 

“Rueks, seriously, everyone is offering to take you off duty. You don’t need to be so hands on, stay home, stay safe.” If I hear someone give me that order one more time, I’m going to scream. “You didn't ask to be dragged into this, so...drag yourself out of this.” Like it’s that simple, like it’s that easy. But he doesn’t know the extent of the storm inside of me, I can’t fault him for his ignorance. 

“I don’t need some sort of quick fix, I need a solution.” I tell him.

“And running away is one?” He laughs. My eyes narrow.

“It’s better than this. What are we gonna do, fight this war, hope that we don’t die and then wait around for the next one?” I scoff.

“You act like our entire lives have been pandemonium. This is a couple years worth of conflict, Rueki. What’s a couple more?”

“And then a couple more after that, then a couple more after that. Our lives have been pandemonium. This started more than ten years ago.” I remind him.

“And for almost ten years, you were fine, weren’t you?” He snaps, eyes popping open. I recoil, pulling away from him.

“Skuld remind you of that?” I snarl.

“The fuck is your problem?” He turns toward me, legs still tucked toward his chest, leaving me crouched on my haunches in front of him.

“My problem is that you only wanna talk trash to me when your shitty friends are around.” I roll my eyes as they draw closer and closer, Skuld’s laughter becoming audible. 

“I’m fucking concerned, Rueki. All of a sudden you’re afraid of conflict, you don’t tell me what you’re feeling, you don’t tell anyone much of anything other than that you’re tired. I don’t feel like I’m hanging out with my wife anymore, I haven’t felt that way since you got back from Shibuya.” His brow puckers together, eyes pleading, like I’m the one being outrageous. Like I’m fucking stupid for wanting an actual solution and not just a treatment.

“I feel like I’m on the tip of a needle anymore I--. I can’t fight, because if I do, I’ll probably do something to piss you off, I can’t fucking blow up Daybreak Town, because I can’t bring my damn babysitters with me. I can’t sit around, because Vanitas can still hurt me, I can’t block any of this out and just pretend to be normal, because I’m not and this isn’t and Xigbar can still--.” My throat tightens, a snake closing around its prey. I start picking at my palms, nails wearing down the fabric of my shirt. 

“Xigbar can still what?” Lea presses. I shake my head. “Rueki, Xigbar can still what?”

“I don’t really…” I begin and instantly want to shove my words back into my mouth. I shake my head, longing only to recoil in on myself, but he grabs my face into his hands.

“Come on, be my girl again, scream at me like you’re not afraid of me, talk to me like you actually trust me again. I’m on your fucking team, but if you keep disappearing on me...I can’t do this on my own. I don’t know how I’m supposed to pick you up if you’re not showing me how.” He chokes out. My hands shake, I’m gonna start fucking crying if he doesn’t let me go and his stupid fucking friends are coming and I already want to drown in my own mortification, I can’t do this.

“He’s in my head.” I spit out. “Only once, but he spoke to me, time just stopped moving and it was just him and I and I thought it was a fluke or I was hallucinating or something, but Ienzo said my heart looked like it was missing a piece and Naminé...thinks Xigbar might have something to do with that. And maybe having a piece of my heart is how he’s...connecting to me.” 

Lea doesn’t move, doesn’t react, just searches my face like this is all a bad joke and he’s waiting for the punchline. Tears start to bubble up. I hear footsteps, and now Kairi and Namine’s voices and I swear, he’s gotta see my pulse points hammering as panic slaps me straight across the face. Let me go, I plead, let me run, please don’t anchor me here when everyone else is approaching. Lea’s eyes dart up. 

“Look who we picked up on our way, Rueki.” Kairi giggles from behind me, likely referring to Skuld and Isa, but I don’t turn around to see.

“Rueki and I are going for a walk.” Lea says quickly, hands falling away from my face. I’m going to be sick.

“We literally just got back with ice cream.” Skuld complains.

“You could use some extra, you’ve still got weight to put back on.” Lea waves a hand, rising to his feet. He extends a hand that I’m afraid to take, but do anyway. 

“You guys have gotten real lazy with being subtle.” Kairi rolls her eyes, two bars of ice cream in her hands. Naminé’s eyes are narrowed, her head is cocked to the side as she examines me, pulling through my memories so hard I can nearly feel it.

“Excuse me for wanting alone time with my wife.” Lea just replies curtly and slips his fingers through mine. “Come on.”

And with that, he leads me safely away from the anonymity of the group and straight toward facing my fears.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, hope you're all hanging in there, staying safe and healthy!

XVI.

“Have I told you I like your new outfit? Cuz I do. It’s sleek, kinda hot.”

“Know how I know you’re avoiding something? You’re making small talk.” Lea presses his lips into a firm line as we disappear, out of the line of sight of our friends. And he’s right. Of course he is, so I look away, however conspicuously, wishing that his hand wasn’t wrapped so tight around mine, and I could make a run for it now. 

“I told you everything, I’m not avoiding, I just really don’t want to deal with the consequences of what I just told you. I was hoping you’d just ignore me for a week then we’d bang it out, for old times sake.” Because like he said about this entire cacophony that I’m being drowned in--I didn’t ask for any of this. Not Xigbar’s ties to my heart, not every teenager in a ten world radius tossing their darkness into my heart, not Vanitas purposefully trying to drown me with it. Using dark magic was straight up intoxicating, but my jet black heart can’t take a straight up injection. Not when my whole world seems to be on a grey scale, rather than in technicolor. 

“I’d fuck you in that alleyway if I thought it would help.” Lea makes a face. I lift an eyebrow. “Rueki, your mental health before your vagina.” 

“I think they’re tied. I’ve never had a panic attack while you’re fucking me.” I remind him.

“No, just completely clocked out on me. Don’t you know how hard I tried to keep you from turning into a zombie? Don’t you know how bad I’m trying to stop that from happening again?” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. 

“I do…” I confess, rubbing my free hand along the side of my shorts. “I’m not trying to ruin everything Lea.” I assure him, hating that anymore I default to guilt, to blaming myself and doing everything I can to keep him close to me. He’s right, I have changed, but not since Shibuya, since I lost Kairi, since I discovered that Lea is the only one keeping me upright and since--since he started slipping through my fingers. Or maybe me through his, but this distance is shattering me, and without him to hold me and promise me eternity, and without me believing it even if he did, my life tastes bitter.

“You’re not ruining anything.” His eyebrows come together as he looks at me. “So get that out of your head now.” Silence hangs as our footfalls echo, like heartbeats through town. “I watched Isa do this. Run away from me like this, leave me in the dust because he hurt so bad and didn’t want to break himself down to say anything. I know you don’t want to hear this, Rueks, but you’re a lot alike. I’m not letting you follow him down that same path. You don’t even get an option, I’m not making that same mistake twice.”

And that’s sweet and that’s nice, but those are words.

Lea is extraordinary at words, but empty promises are just more weights I can’t take upon my shoulders.

“Every direction I turn in, I keep getting beaten down. I stay back and do nothing, and my heart is still vulnerable. I feel like everything I try to do you think is wrong or just me trying to put some more distance between the two of us, but it isn’t. I just can’t do this forever, Lea. I can’t keep playing this game with crazy men that want to start shit because they don’t like the way the world is going. They can honestly join the club, I don’t like it either, I want to break it all apart too but...You know, I have panic attacks every time you get hurt. I can’t really look at Kairi anymore. Normal twenty year olds don’t have to watch the people they love die and come back to life, even after they’ve been grieved.” I shake my head.

“But we came back. Me and Kairi. We came back, those are awesome gifts, Rueki.” And I notice very pointedly that he gives me no guidance in which way to turn, that he doesn’t even correct me when I mention that everything I do seems wrong in his eyes. Maybe it’s an oversight, maybe he thinks I’m dramatizing. But I just want to hear him tell me that I’m wrong.

“I don’t want fucking consolation prizes from the universe, I just want you guys to not have to put yourselves in danger in the first place!” I shake my head, hair brushing my cheeks. “You don’t know how angry it makes me, how much I want to hurt every single thing that threatens our peace. You worked your ass off to keep me sane, but even you can’t work against our environment. It needs to change. If we keep surrounding ourselves in war and loss and pain, what do you think we’re going to keep getting out of that?” I protest. Lea’s jaw sets, he looks at the buildings as we pass them and inhales so deeply, his nostrils flare out. 

“I dunno, Rueks. I guess I just kind of got used to it, being raised by Battalion something.” He says flatly, sarcastically, the obvious snide jab still potent. 

“Well that’s the fucking problem. Maybe I’m dellusional because I was the only person not raised thinking that assassinating people or fighting darkness were normal, but they’re not. And I’m not a revolutionary thinker for feeling like we deserve better than the shitty hand that we are constantly getting dealt.” I insist. Lea’s expression doesn’t budge, I could shriek. “Say something.”

“I love you, and you do deserve to not get stuck in another war, but it’s naive to think that we’re not going to have problems with someone trying to disturb the balance for the rest of our lives.” He inhales sharply, I roll my eyes.

“Are we really still listening to a bunch of stupid, backwards people telling us what balance is supposed to look like or what the state of the realm is supposed to be?” I ask. 

“You sound terribly idealistic.”

“Bet you never thought you’d say that.” I murmur, though it doesn’t feel nice, there’s no laughter, there’s no enjoyment in the irony. 

“You’re always the one urging us to be practical, to solve the problems we see in front of us.” Lea reminds me.

“I think we need to think bigger than just solving the current problem. I think there needs to be a rewiring in how this realm functions.” I explain.

“So what’s your suggestion? We shoot Daybreak Town straight out of the sky, I give you my damn blessing to slip in and you lace that place with so many explosives that none of the Foretellers make it out and we never see Xigbar again? What then? What happens next time someone threatens the peace, what happens to you, what happens to your heart? Or do you not care about that anymore and is that why you’re so ready to destroy everything that threatens you and keep everyone you love at an arm’s length?” 

My chest feels like there’s a fist around it, squeezing. 

“Maybe I don’t.” I mutter. “Maybe killing Zexion and that civilian in Transmute City and half of the Darkness’ in the Keyblade Graveyard was all I could handle and now my small, stupid mind can’t fathom how to cope with reality.” 

“No one called your mind small and stupid.” He sighs. “When did we get so bad at this? At least when we were yelling at each other, we were solving things.”

“I’m up for ideas.” I shrug, though it sounds meek, even to me. 

“I told you, stay home, stay safe, stay away from all of this.”

“And let Xigbar talk to me while you’re gone? Or would you prefer I avoid him and let Vanitas abuse me whenever he’s feeling bored?” I ask.

“Well, what do I do, Rueki? How do I help you? Because you don’t know how to navigate this, but neither do I!” He huffs. I skid to a halt, rocking back on my heels, his fingers come unglued from mine and my hands are quick to wrap around the tops of my arms. “I can’t not fight this fight, sweetheart. No one is saying you have to. Your own cycle of violence is breaking you, I don’t want to watch that happen ever again. But I’m...I’m trying to be a better man, you know?”

“You’re a good man, Lea.” I murmur.

“A good man wouldn’t have made you kill.” The air stiffens around us, Lea actually shivers, I turn away, touching a guard rail near by, separating us from a blue cliff’s edge. 

“That was one time, one mistake. This is so much more than that.” I protest, softly.

“It isn’t. Those were the steps I took, that was my choice, I saw how open your heart was and I took full advantage of that every chance I got, but like hell am I not going to take every opportunity I can to be better. I’m not a kid like I was when I joined up with Organization XIII. I can’t keep finding every excuse in the book to shuck aside my own responsibility. You’re my wife. I’m responsible for how I treat you, I can’t take those things back, Rueki. But I’m trying...to be something you’re proud of.”

I snake my arms around his waist, whipping away from the railing to tug him in close.

“I’m already proud, Lea.” Can’t you see I don’t give a fuck about this? That I just need you be a force and help me change our roles in this life? I don’t want to be heroes anymore.

“I know you are. But you’re a little biased when it comes to me, sweetheart.” He shakes his head, chin brushing the top of my hair. “And I still have a long way to go.”

“Do you know what would make me proud? Bending for me, change your ideals for me. Stop trying to make balance work when it doesn’t. Disappear with me or change everything with me, I don’t care. I don’t need anything but you and I can’t detach from this battle without you. I’m still so scared you’re going to die again and I can’t do that. I can’t...the outcome would be the same for me. As last time.” My voice fades a little with each syllable, anxiety clenching my throat, making all of my words a tremendous but necessary chore. 

“I’m not going to die, Rueki.” He assures me, which means as little as silence.

“I hate you trying to promise me something that’s not possible.” I sigh.

“I can do my damndest.” He insists. It’s not enough, we both know that.

“I’m not going to back out if you don’t.” I grumble, stubbornly. “I’m not ever going to stop looking for ways to break this cycle, but I’m not going to let you fight this without me to have your back.”

“You’re fucking shit at taking care of yourself.” He tells me. “I’m watching this break you and you just want to keep on with it because you’re too stubborn to let me take care of myself?”

“Well, Cid was right. I value your life a lot more than mine. And I’m thinking you might return that sentiment.” I accuse. He snorts and rubs my arms. 

“You might be right about that. But you understand why I need to stick with this, right?” He asks.

“No.” I say, flatly.

“Rueki, our new enemies were responsible for everything that happened to Skuld. They want to purify the worlds even if it means committing mass genocide. And to be fucking honest, I’d really like to smash Xigbar’s smug face a little.” Lea huffs, but my mouth has been twisted into a pout since he uttered Skuld’s name.

“So that’s just it?” I ask. “No resolution, no agreement, no figuring things out.”

“Guess not.” He mutters, licking his lips, blatantly as unsatisfied as me. “Wasn’t it nice when things used to work out all clean and nice?” He asks.

“For who?” I snort. Wind brushes past me, Lea rubs his arms so I unwrap his scarf from my waist and lean up on my toes to wrap it around his neck.

“You don’t want it anymore?” He asks.

“You need it. It’s okay.” I shake my head. He brushes my cheeks and my eyes flutter shut, trying to focus on the way his thumbs feel brushing my skin. “This sucks, you know. Even when things weren’t nice or clean, I at least felt like I could take on the world with you. That there was nothing we couldn’t scheme our way out of. We used to be a force.”

“Well, we still are.” Lea tries, and we turn to lean against the guard rail, shoulder to shoulder, arms touching. “That’s just the thing though. When we’re both forces, it can be tricky to actually work with each other and not against. It’s not a big deal that we’re still learning.” I wish I could be as lax about this as him, I wish I could look at this as some sort of moment to show how good I can be. I wish that he could fucking bend on way or another, because this impasse is going to lead me to pull clumps more hair out.

“Lonely, isn’t it?” A stupid question. And not Lea’s voice. The air around me is cooler, Lea is perfectly frozen, a statue of a man.

“No one asked you to be here.” I grumble, under my breath.

“And yet, I couldn’t be here if you didn’t want me to be, like come on, at least own up to it, kiddo.” Xigbar’s voice cackles, seeming to shake the air around me.

“You’re the one with the missing piece of my heart, don’t act like you’re not milking every bit of that.” I roll my eyes. When he doesn’t respond immediately, I’m not sure that I should actually count myself as victorious for suspecting that. Not when I taste bile. “I was right then.” Because I’m thinking it, so I’m sure he hears it. “It’s not the protection spell, somehow you stole a piece of my heart.”

“Close, but again, no cigar. I do have your heart, but I didn’t have to steal it. How’d you figure that out by the way? That you were missing a piece?” He chuckles, as though this is somehow amusing to him, and not for the first time, I wish I could pull him through this connection to punch him in the face. 

“I am not interested in sitting here and humoring you with this conversation, you are disgusting, I don’t know what you thought you’d accomplish by taking that from me but--”

“I told you I didn’t take it. It was a gift.” My stomach is a rag, wrung out and tossed aside, and it takes every bit of concentration, a pure focus on counting my heartbeats to keep the contents of my stomach down. 

“From the Master.” I breathe. “That’s why I saw the eye from his Keyblade in my heart. That must have been the mark, where he cut my heart out and gave it to you. But I don’t get it...how, and how could he without me noticing, without anyone noticing? And why?”

“Information comes at a cost, little Rueki.” He tells me. I snarl, an animalistic sound from the base of my throat.

“I’m not playing this game, tell me, you owe it to me!” I roar.

“Listening, little Rueki, is the cost.” He says quickly, which does ebb my attitude, though only slightly. That doesn’t seem too high a cost, but I know with him, that’s the kicker. It’s gotta be.

“I’ve listened to you enough. What more have you not already spewed out without my permission? What more could you possibly have to tell me about?” I roll my eyes.

“About that solution you were looking for.” He says. I pause. “As if you were the only one who thought that way. The Master foresaw this when I was a boy, that’s why I was sent forward in time, that’s why he needed you to reawaken him in Shibuya. He’d botched up the timeline so many times on his own, trying to stop darkness from prevailing, but you know, some things are inevitable.” 

“Like me telling you to go fuck yourself, because I literally have negative interest in hearing what some ancient man thinks is the proper state of this realm.” I reply, pressing my lips into a tight, unappealing line. 

“You can listen, and maybe you know, learn. And I’ll tell you about your heart. Gotta admit, it’s gonna freak the hell out of you, but uh hey, you’ve gotta know. Where we stand, why the Master needs to prevail.” Xigbar tries. “Just trust me. Just one time, trust me kiddo. What could it hurt?”

“A whole fucking lot.” But I look at Lea, who is still frozen and I think of our standstill and how no matter how hard we try, there is no solution, there is no promise of a brighter future. There’s just us and just this, and just the two of us very small, very human, creatures. Is it greedy or foolish to bite from the fruit that Xigbar--Luxu?--is offering me? Because it doesn’t feel that way, it feels smart and pragmatic, and like I’m exercising some sort of control over our strange connection. Me, at the wheel. No one to hold me back. I realize I’ve forgotten what that kind of freedom tastes like. “Fine. But I’m only listening. This changes nothing.”

“As if I thought I’d sway you so easily. You wouldn’t be any fun if you didn’t try to challenge everyone.” He chuckles and I catch myself smiling before I wipe the look off my face. “So, the Master has been around since the creation of light and dark, right? Well in the beginning, it was just him, fighting on behalf of the light, and by the end of the battle, he’d effectively separated the realms into light, dark and in-between. None of them touched, not even at the edges, and in his image, he created us.”

“Humans?” I snort, because if he’s going to go off on some creationism rant, I’m hardly the person he should be conversing with.

“The Foretellers. All of my siblings before me. Yep, bet you’d never guess I’m the youngest, looking at us all now.” He almost sounds wistful as he recalls, and that in and of itself speaks volumes. “I was told that for a very long time, there was peace. The Master had a Keyblade, but there was no need for anyone else to. The sun and the stars shone bright, there wasn’t so much as a blemish in the realm. Things were pure, quiet, like the first sunrise. We still don’t know where you humans came from. But you threw a curve ball into things. You all started existing, eh, around the time Aced would’ve been born. So, I never knew a life without you guys. But the Master, Aced and Ira all agree, you’re impossible to be controlled, unpredictable. I think the Master likes that, some sort of conflict, since he’s figured out how to manipulate just about every other thing out there. Yeah, you humans are something else. It was when you all came into existence that the Master noticed the edges of the realms blurring into one another. So he gave the humans Keyblades to help defend the realm. I don’t think I need to tell you that it wasn’t enough, the first time someone got a taste of darkness.”

“It’s powerful. Seductive, addicting...in small doses.” I agree.

“And you’re hardly the only one that felt that way. Before we knew it, humans were turning dark fast, and even those that weren’t, were curious. What is this darkness, what’s so appealing about it?”

“Why are all of my friends choosing it.” My mouth twists. Well, this doesn’t feel so very different. When I have lived the past several years watching darkness break down everything and everyone I love, and now I’m being told that it’s essential, that we weren’t really fighting for light this whole time, just balance. What sort of backwards, stuck in reverse nonsense am I supposed to take in next time?

Will I still be the only one standing without a Keyblade?

“There’s something in that tone…” He seems to be mulling over my words. I rub my arms.

“My job is to listen, yours is to talk. Remember?” I ask.

“And you’re following the rules?” He barks out a laugh. I can’t help the tiniest twinge of a smile as it quirks the edges of my lips.

“I’m not a complete dick. I can follow some sort of logic, of equivalence, of rules. You know, if they make sense.” I confess.

“Oh no, I get you.” Xigbar tells me, and I actually don’t doubt this. He manipulated a lot of things, withheld so much truth, and his actions were absolutely deadly, completely poisonous. But I don’t think he would have done this for Xemnas, or Xehanort. He did a lot, but I remember the slacker attitude, the fact that he always seemed substantially less homicidal than Xemnas. There was once a time I was backing into him like he was my sort of safety net because he was more out for the thrill than he was in it for Xemnas and if I could only give him that spark he was so desperately craving, it wouldn’t have been hard to win him over. I doubt he’ll be so easily swayed now that the Master he’s been serving for far too long, has returned. Okay, he’s got a code that’s not so very different from mine. I can respect that. Or at least I can understand it.

“So they all were falling to darkness…” I bite my lip, urging him to continue, so that I don’t need to further contemplate if I’m being too amicable to avoid any further conflict in my head. 

“They fell to darkness, so the Master sent all of my siblings on missions to gather light, or Lux. They divided tasks out to their Unions, made light the new goal, got people excited about, but that was the problem. Humans get too invested in a goal, and suddenly they’re reaching for darkness to make it happen. So, the Master left my siblings to keep gathering light but put one of my sister’s on a backup plan.” Xigbr tells me.

“Ava.” I recall, from Skuld’s story. Xigbar chuckles.

“My favorite sister, in those days.” I notice very plainly, how wistfully he says the last three words. “Well, you must know about her then.”

“I know that she gathered up that group, the Dandelions.” I say. 

“She wanted everything to work out so bad, it hurt. Wanted to keep darkness away from the worlds, keep her little humans safe. I think it broke her heart when I explained the reality of my mission to her. Go forward in time, see another Keyblade War to the end, bring the rest of our siblings back, ensure that you were able to bring the Master of Masters back, and utilize some of her Dandelions in a final attempt to win the war that the Master of Masters has been fighting since before I was born. The thing is, Rueki, we can’t destroy darkness, not totally. But we can bind it. Seal it in data, and then, when there’s enough of it, we can delete it. But this is tricky, we’ll need to secure light in at least seven worlds to stabilize the realm.”

“And let me, guess, there needs to be at least thirteen dark worlds destroyed.” I roll my eyes. He chuckles, I snicker too then bite my lip. He is charming as shit. In a smarmy, greasy, rat like way. But charming, I’ll give him that. “And Ava didn’t like that because--”

“Genocide.” Is all he says. “I’m not gonna sugarcoat it for you, little Rueki, we both know you’re not into that anyway. Yeah, some worlds have to be destroyed, but you have to expend energy to make something glorious, everything in this realm comes with a cost and I mean everything.”

“You don’t need to justify that part to me, it’s a common misconception that I give a shit.” I cross my arms to my chest. He’s silent and I snort. There’s something deliciously victorious in taking Xigbar’s words away from him, because the man is incapable of shutting up. “I’m really past giving a fuck about anyone outside of my group. I can live without a whole world full of people I haven’t met if it keeps the people I love safe.” If it’s them or the realm, I will choose them, without hesitation. 

“So then, I guess I have a proposition for you.” Xigbar drawls.

“No.” I answer.

“You haven’t even heard it.” He sighs.

“I’m not interested in what you’re selling. I said I’d hear you but…” I look at Lea, my eyes flick to where he’s stationary and where everything seems so fragile and feels like it could break apart if I put too much weight on him. “This isn’t something I can lose.” 

“Not even for the opportunity to keep his ass alive?” Xigbar offers. I smirk. “I’m just saying, the easiest way to guarantee no one gets hurt fatally is being the force that clashes with them.”

“You haven’t met me then.” I tuck a bit of a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not good with middle ground. You’re not wrong, you know? I don’t agree with how they’re going about it, I’m not here to fight another war over something as tentative as balance, that can shift at any point in time. But I don’t...you don’t realize that what you are and what you’ve done has consequences. Be right all you want, but I don’t belong to you.” My hands start to shake, I want nothing more than for something or someone to reach out and snatch my trembling fingers. 

He’s silent for a long while again, and were it not for Lea, frozen in time, I might wonder if Xigbar had disappeared. 

“I promised you I’d tell you about your heart.” Xigbar tells me, voice low. My stomach churns. Do I actually want to know?

But the answer is always yes, abundantly yes when it comes to my own being.

“You are missing a piece. But you have a piece of someone else’s inside of you. Broken off to match the mould of what was missing in another.”

I predict his words before he even says them.

“That was the Master’s gift to me. He went forward in time with a piece of my heart and granted me the piece of another. A promise for a perfect match, probably right around the time of your birth.”

“Why the fuck would you want that?” I breathe, winded and not. There’s something brilliant in this knowledge, there’s something whole and filling about knowing that even when my own heart is crumbling, there is a pillar, there is Xigbar, who will not let me fall, I know. But this is...this is my heart and I--

What claim did I have to it in the first place? What does it even fucking matter anymore? Maybe belonging to him is exactly the same as belonging to myself and it’s just one more thing that’s too exhausting to fight.

“My namesake is lust, kiddo. And that’s all fun and dandy, but that’s a pretty clear cut absence of something a lot more profound.” Something I’m supposed to symbolize.

“Lust?” Luxu, Luxuria. La Luxure. Fuck me. I am not ignorant to the call. And Ava? Possibly Avarice? “What are you, the human embodiment of sin?”

He’s quiet.

“That’s the closest anyone’s ever come to hitting it on the head in the first go.” He answers.

“But I’m not yours. Heart or not, in case you’ve missed it, everyone else I’ve ever had a connection with in my heart, it’s been platonic.” Sora, Roxas, Xion, Ventus, Vanitas.

“Oh I know. And it doesn’t matter. I don’t need that, if I’m being real with you, kiddo. I’m not exactly hopeful about that anymore, hearing about that mark Axel left on you.” The mention of that mark again, I want to ask him about that, but I’m afraid of what that could cost. Especially when I have nothing more to pay. “I’m whatever you want from me, whenever you want it. Anything you give me is everything I’ve ever had. All that you want is all that I can be. That’s the cool thing about not being human. I don’t have such linear needs.”

And Skuld is right. This kind of devotion is--it’s fucking unreal. If the least I ever give him is the most he’s known, he’s hungry for me to use him, to fall into him any chance I need. To let me take him and his plan and work them and throw him away, just so long as he can have a taste. I can have it both ways, I can stand at his side and keep my friends safe and fall right back into Lea’s arms when the realm is different, just so long as I still throw him scraps. But I know me and I know what and who I am and that’s not what I’m capable of doing, to someone inhuman or not. Not when he does still have emotions and a tangible heart. Not when I’m I do love someone who I trust, who trusts me, despite everything. Who is very flawed and cannot help me over this obstacle, but loves me, nonetheless. Just because what Xigbar is saying is sensical and doesn’t seem like the worst plan I’ve ever heard, doesn’t mean I’ve got a reason to walk away from the people who love me, the people I should give it another shot at reconnecting with. The people I’ve stood by this long and for nostalgia’s sake can’t completely let go of. 

“Xigbar...that’s not who I...that’s not okay for either of us.” I toy with the edges of my hair. Sexual or not, the last thing I have any business doing is succumbing to him when I have someone beside me who has worked through everything with me. 

“Cool.” He just says, and I can actually visualize him shrugging, visualize him accepting this, because he trusts the Master so thoroughly, and whatever he promised young Luxu must come to fruition eventually. I think it probably must feel nice. To trust a process just so. I trust nothing on that level. Not even myself. Not even Lea. Not even the ebb and flow of life in the universe. “You’re flipping out a lot less about the heart thing than I expected.” He changes the subject. I make a small noncommittal noise, he laughs and I wish, briefly, that he were here, only so I could watch the upturn of his lips, because it feels so very strange and hyper intimate to be having such a deep conversation with someone I can’t even see, but can only imagine. 

“The guess work was more horrifying, all things considered.” I tell him. “Besides, Naminé already kind of prepped me. She was the one who suggested you might have something to do with it.”

“Naminé.” He mulls over her name. “Can’t ever seem to keep her hands clean. Can’t help herself, protecting her little heroes.” But he says heroes in the same tone he says humans, and I guess neither of us really know where to go from here.

But when time unfreezes, and I have to relay what just happened to Lea, I can’t help the tone of my voice as I relay the Master’s plans, as I contemplate a world without the unsteady swing of balance. A world with Lea and I, bathed in the warmth of blinding, untainted light.


	18. Chapter 18

XVII.

“Well, that was a complete disaster.” Skuld mutters.

“You’ve said that already.” Ven murmurs, carding a hand through his hair.

“Four times.” Kairi agrees.

“Well…” From the rearview mirror, I see Skuld pursing her lips and crossing her arms too tight to her tiny chest. She’s right, of course she is, but--

“Everyone’s aware we failed, announcing it doesn’t really help things.” I inhale deeply, knuckles white around the controls of my ship. Kairi looks to me, brow knitting together, and even makes a move to reach for me, but I feel dirty allowing her to cast me even that small amount of kindness. 

Skuld isn’t wrong, the mission, our mission, was a colossal failure and on my account. I fully shut down and prepared myself to lose her and everyone around me again. I prepared for defeat and ate it in turn. And now we’re a step further behind, another world lost to the Master’s cause and I--

I don’t--

None of us were fucking excited about going to Agrabagh. Even Kairi, who is still an utter child, giggling in delight at every new world mentioned to her, seemed unenthused about another desert. She has, in her own words, stared at enough sand for one lifetime. And that’s all very fine and were I not feeling every bit of my last encounter with Xigbar and my lack of resolution with Lea, drumming down my skull, I might have smiled or laughed or told her I understood. 

But I didn’t and no one did, and we ended up, a quartet that hardly wanted to stand beside each other. I can’t look at Skuld and all she does is stare at me, probably waiting for me to trip up, looking for a failure that she can critique. I want to miss the way Kairi and I used to be enough to do something about it, but every time I think of reaching toward her, my heart just shuts something down, like the sheer amount of darkness I’m carrying won’t let me any closer to the light. Ven is fine, but my new ties with Vanitas have my relationship with the boy a lot less friendly and a lot more feral. I’m a vampire, and every time I look at Ventus, I think of how I want to devour him, absorb him, take everything he is and everything that’s his and consume them. The glutton through and through; it’s much harder to escape Vanitas than I ever would’ve expected. Much, much harder when I have to look at Ven and contemplate all the ways his existence would complete mine. 

Ven and Skuld still get on quite well, but she’s got a thousand questions about Vanitas for him that he can’t answer and Kairi spends most of the trip glaring at her, probably because she’s still convinced that Skuld’s causing issues for me. And maybe she’s not wrong, maybe without the pressure of trying to appease some woman who doesn’t trust me in the least, I wouldn’t feel half as heavy. But there is a tremendous weight to being me anymore, no matter how bad I try to shake it off, no matter how hard I scrape away at it.

“You know, no one’s blaming you, Rueki.” Kairi promises, back to reality, hands fluttering back onto her lap. I snort as I watch Skuld roll her eyes in the rear view mirror.

“I am.” She says flatly, persistently. 

“Well why don’t you fuck off?” Kairi snaps, Ven’s eyes go huge.

“Can we please not fight like this?” He protests, meekly, quite unequipped or the animosity that a princess isn’t supposed to have. 

“No, fuck her. We failed, shit happens, but we succeeded a lot before you came around, do you know that?” Kairi narrows her eyes, Skuld shakes her head, folds a hand under her chin and turns to stare out the window.

“So you’re just ignoring the fact that Rueki would’ve let us all die, that she did let the world die, because she got overwhelmed by monsters?” Skuld lifts a brow.

“She froze, she passed out, you asshole. You could at least consider her well being if you’re not going to leave her the fuck alone!” Kairi wails. “She was scared, stop trying to act like you’re so above being human, or you’re no better than who we’re fighting against!”

She’s right. I did freeze, I was scared, but it isn’t as simple as a panic attack and has a lot more to do with the fact that it’s just so easy to crumble. Just one brick, one little move to tear down the walls I built so high, one hit and my own internal fortress crumbles.

The only thing that feels good anymore is destruction.

We were all surly when we finally made it through the cluster fuck of a place called a ‘Cave of Wonders’. None of us were relieved for anything more than getting the fuck out of dodge when Kairi aimed her Keyblade at the world’s heart. We got a whole whopping none of that when Vanitas came barrelling at us, Darklings on his tail, Luxord at his side.

Not Luxord. Ludor.

Skuld didn’t so much as blanche. For all of the ferocity and insistence to which she swore she knew Ludor well and that he would never stand at the Master’s side, she seems to accept his failures easily and is the first to clash blades with him, screaming like a banshee as she does.

So why can I not? If they were such good friends, why can she cast him as her enemy in the blink of an eye when I still remember chess matches and the way he tried to persuade me not to give my life to end Saix’s?

Kairi yelps, swatting at darkling after darkling. Ventus jumps Vanitas, trying with everything in him to conquer the manifestation of his own darkness. And me? I shut right the fuck down.

I see the cluster of Darklings and I’m in the Keyblade Graveyard again, watching Xehanort, in Terra’s body, beat Lea into the ground. I’m watching the Demon Tide, watching Aqua shut down and give in, I’m holding Kairi close again as she sobs and as our friends corpses swirl around us, as we’re torn limb from limb and it’s all I can do to cradle her close and tell her that I love her and promise her that everything is going to be alright.

I’m coming apart and darkness is prevailing and light is expiring and I--

My head is swimming.

Ludor calls my name. 

I can’t breathe.

Kairi shrieks for me.

My knees give out.

Light washes across the world, then black, I can’t see anything more than colors, can’t feel anything but the claws of Heartless around my throat. I’m hearing Axel scream as his own fire spell tears him apart, I’m watching Kairi crystalize, I’m contemplating killing Xion to save Roxas and begging Roxas for death and feeling Saix beat and beat and beat into me again and again, unrelenting.

I don’t know where he is, I don’t know and even if he did I wouldn’t tell him.

The Shark Noise pierces me. I watch Zexion fade.

Fuck, I’m dying, I’m dying again and no one can stop it. I’m dying and so is everyone I love so I should stop loving them because they’re all gonna leave me. Maybe not now, maybe not in this war, but what about the next and the next and the NEXT?

I hold it all, catch it, try to shove it back in and then, with futile hands, I release it. 

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t care like this anymore. If everything around me breaks and I don’t try to save it, then it can’t possibly be my fault. These aren’t my failings, these aren’t--

I come to and Kairi is clutching my face in her hands on the ship. She’s crying and shaking me and Skuld is pacing, one hand carding through her hair as she blabbers on the phone--probably to Lea-- and Ven is fumbling, trying to figure out the flight controls. 

Why the fuck couldn’t I have died on the floor in a swarm of Darklings?

“Oh thank God!” Kairi throws her arms around me, crushing me to her chest. 

“Yeah, she’s awake.” Skuld mutters. “Probably.” She sighs. “Yeah, we’ll see you soon.”

“Are you okay to fly?” Ven rushes me, eyes huge.

I reiterate, why couldn’t I have just died? 

“Yeah, I’ll fly.” I say, pushing myself up and away from Kairi.

And that leads us to exactly where we are now. Me miserably piloting a ship, filled with my best friend and this girl I have catered to, too long arguing, and my first crush sulking in the back.

What a fucking shit show. 

“A world fell, if she can’t take responsibility for her actions, that’s her fault, that’s her problem, not mine, I did my part and then some, I fought one of my friends and she couldn’t even summon her weapon?” Skuld bites.

“Fuck you!” Kairi screams.

“She’s an anvil, Kairi. She’s an anvil that we have to pick up and carry with us everywhere we go, she’s dead weight, but we have to lug her along because at the first possible second, she might have some sort of psychic conversation with Luxu and might be lured into doing something really just...downright deadly. So we get to keep carrying this anvil around--do I even need to begin to explain to you how hard it’s going to be to win this war, when we are carrying around someone like this?” Skuld throws her hands up.

Kairi’s face is straight up red, she is shaking with rage. 

Something cold swirls around my chest.

“Who told you?” I ask. “About...my conversation with Luxu?” My insides are a ball of yarn, twisting and knotting themselves with each syllable that passes through my lips. 

Skuld doesn’t say another word until we land at the Mysterious Tower, and when she does, it’s more like a grunt, she shoves herself up and stomps straight out of the ship. Ven swallows loudly and scampers out too, like he’s just beyond desperate to get the hell out of dodge. I can hardly blame him.

Kairi turns to me. 

“I’ll punch her if you want me to. Axel can’t be mad at you for what I do.”

“He told her.” I say, in a dry voice. “About Xigbar coming into my heart. About us talking.” 

“What?” Kairi balks.

“There’s no way else she could have known.” Unless Naminé told her but as I piece things together it becomes blatant how much more likely it is that my own spouse sold me out over Naminé. “He’s entered my heart a few times, talked to me. Just talked, that’s all.”

“About what?” She asks, but with a patient voice, with the voice of a friend, more than I deserve.

“The first time I just told him to fuck off. The second time he told me about why the Master wants to purge the worlds. And that we have pieces of each other’s hearts.” I confess.

“What!” She gasps.

“And I told Lea right after that happened. And apparently he freaked out and told Skuld. If he wants to tell his friends, I don’t give a shit, he can vent, this is a lot, but why to her? Of all people, why her?” My knuckles tighten around the wheel of the ship, palms ice cold.

“Um, fuck him, if he wants to vent, it could be to me or someone that actually gives a fuck about you and not some girl who has treated you like shit since the second she stepped onto the scene or his other little friend, who literally tortured you! Like what the fuck?” She rages. 

“Do I deserve this, Kai? I don’t...I don’t really know anymore. Lea was so good to me for so long and put his own needs aside for me, I can’t really be upset that he’s choosing to let off some steam. And I was so shitty to be around for so long and like I’m legit the worst person anyone could be in a relationship with right now cuz of all of my weird connections to the Foretellers and how much darkness I bring to things. Like I just...I don’t think all of it’s me, but some of it has to be, right?” I ask, tossing my head back into the headrest. Kairi’s hand is instantly on my face and I wish I could flutter into her warmth, like I’d done so many times before. But even now, she’s just a body. Just something soft to comfort me when my back is to the wall. I just want things to feel right again.

“What happened to you while I was gone, Rueki?” She breathes, brushing a thumb across my cheek. “Because my best friend would never think so low of herself that she thinks any of this can be her fault, any more than any of us having Keyblades makes it our fault for Xehanort existing.” 

“It’s your choice to keep fighting. And you always do.” I mumble.

“That’s not a bad thing, that’s a responsible thing. That’s our way of showing how much we love and value our lives and the people in them. We love each other so much, we don’t want anyone to think it’s okay for them to change that.” She tries, and maybe she’s right, but to me, it solidifies something very different. Do I not value the way things are now? Do I not want the world to keep moving the way it is, because I’m not fighting to keep anything the same. Not really, in fact, the though of things staying exactly the way they are are--well, that’s fucking horrifying. I don’t want to always be on the edge, always on the verge of a panic attack, watching the people I love slip away from me and wondering is this on me or is this on them, and how the hell am I supposed to bridge that when the only way I’ve learned to heal is distance? Well, distance from everyone but the man who proves time and time again that he’s far more interested in being around his reunited trio, than his wife. 

“I don’t think it’s right, Kairi.” I tell her. “The way things are. Something is so wrong, so disturbed. And I think I’m the only one who feels it.”

“You feel lonely, Rueki. It’s okay to say.” And I don’t know if that’s right or isn’t, but I do feel low, that’s undeniable. “I’ve been trying to give you distance and let you be who you are, because that’s how our friendship used to be, we were there for each other when we needed each other, but mostly we just had fun. That’s on me, it’s so hard, to me, it wasn’t even a big deal. I spent some time wandering Scala ad Caelum, Sora and I ate ice cream, and then he faded and I just woke up. It’s so hard for me to understand that for you, it was a year, and that in that year, the friend you’ve grown to need isn’t the friend that I used to be. I can do better though. I can close that space, just tell me when enough is enough.”

But it will never be enough. I would devour Kairi to keep her safe, to keep her close, to make her a part of me so I couldn’t lose her and didn’t have to worry about her again.

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to tell myself apart from Vanitas. Maybe we’re more alike than I could fathom and Kairi is my Ventus. 

“I don’t need a friend, Kairi. I need a fucking miracle worker.” I shake my head.

“When did you become so hopeless?”

Did I become? Or have I been all along, and instead of giving into it, did I fight it with teeth and nails until there was no fight left? I’m not sure I know.

There’s a tap on the window of my ship, coming from one of Lea’s long, thick fingers. My head snaps up, he lifts a brow, not looking impatient or irritated but genuinely concerned and I guess that’s probably his advantage. He’s so good at pulling my strings just so. 

I look away from him and Kairi, to the controls on my dashboard.

“How far do you think I’d have to fly to never be found again?” In an instant, I remember that it’s Kairi I’m talking to and not a disembodied set of ears, because she huffs.

“I’d kick your ass. Now come on, let’s beat up your husband and we can spend the entire night drinking wine and eating nachos and talking.” She beams, climbing to her feet and offering me a hand. I guess I can’t really blame her, the way she bounces to life. She doesn’t know anything outside of her self healing heart. She can’t fathom this, any of it. “I promise I can be a good listener.”

“Sure, okay.” I say, letting her take my hand, though I don’t really know what purpose this serves other than to make her feel better. Regardless, all the wine in the world wouldn’t change the fact that none of this is working for me, not anymore.

She doesn’t stop squeezing my fingers as we exit the ship, cheeks puffy, eyes narrowed as she looks over Lea.

“Thanks for taking care of her, Kai. You okay babe, Skuld said you passed out.” Lea’s face scrunches together.

“Did fucking Skuld happen to say that Rueki had a panic attack? Or did she conveniently leave tha out because she’s had it out for Rueki since day one.” Kairi snorts. It’s now that I realize our friends are gathering around us and my hand is laced through a screaming teenager’s, and said screaming teenager fully intends to stir the pot. 

“I did mention that, thanks for the concern.” Skuld rolls her eyes.

“Wait, what do you mean she’s got an issue with Rueki?” Roxas asks, suddenly defensive as all hell, on my behalf I’m certain. 

“Yeah, no comment on that?” Kairi sets a free hand on her hip.

“No, not especially.” Skuld replies, scathingly. “You’re a child, I’m not going to indulge this.” She huffs.

“I’m a child? Fuck you.” Kairi drops my hand. “You are an actual bully, do you realize this? Do you feel good about the fact that your entire dynamic around here is to make someone feel like shit about themselves? You are literally doing everything you can to kick her down and cozy up to the people she loves, you wanna talk about taking responsibility, you’re a cunt, Skuld. Stop hiding behind the tortured girl bit and take responsibility for that!”

The air goes static, my heartbeat begins to pick up, blood pumping into my too hot face. Golden eyes are on me. All eyes are on me, I want nothing more than to cover my face and disappear into my ship. Oh hell, when did I lose every bit of my nerve? Was it the second I realized I couldn’t live without Lea? Was it when I made peace with Isa? When did I stop being myself, because I consider the woman that used to be mine and what I wouldn’t give to be her again. 

She knew herself, she believed the words that came out of her mouth, she was strong willed and intuitive and not--

This. 

This puddle, this shell that I am now. I don’t know where Rueki went, maybe she stayed dead the last time her body ventured beyond.

“If Rueki has a problem, then Rueki’s an adult and can say something, I’m not going to play games with a seventeen year old.” Skuld huffs.

It’s moments like these that I can decide what kind of woman I want to be. Moments like these that used to define me, that let me know I wasn’t a coward and that I would not be content to live life oppressed and in fear. That was the outlook I took every time I walked into Xemnas’ throne room, and yet, I feel the same now. And somehow, it’s much harder to speak up against the injustices I’ve stomached in the name of maturing. 

It’s moments like these that show me how little I give a shit about anything.

“I want to go home.” I’m not a woman anymore, but one of those dolls with preprogrammed sayings. 

“There’s not going to be a home to go back to if you keep losing it every time things get hard.” Skuld snaps.

“Piss off.” I mutter, in a void voice. 

“Excuse me?” Skuld balks.

“You can lay the fuck off my wife, is what she meant to say.” Lea snaps, shoulders tight as he finds his way close to me, snatches my hand and snakes an arm around my waist, effectively ensnaring me. “If Rueki decides that it’s best to step away from all of this, that’ll be something she and I decide, not anyone else.”

“I appreciate that, Lea, but I do think it might be for the good of the group now, I do think it’s a discussion we should have.” Aqua, ever the martyr says, biting her lip.

“How can you say that, Aqua, this is Rueki, she’s been with us through so much!” Ven protests.

“If you think half of us are going to just let her fade away at home, you’re wrong.” Roxas snarls.

“And besides, she’s invaluable, she can track Vanitas. We’ve run out of data worlds from Cid’s list, we need her to guide us on the next step.” Xion says, nodding. 

“This isn’t a talk any of us need to be having now, Rueki and I will sort this out later. It’s been a fucking shit day, obviously. Can we all just take a pill and get some fucking ice cream or something?” Lea huffs.

“Why are you avoiding this conversation so publicly, Lea? You obviously don’t have a problem airing my dirty laundry to her.” I gesture to Skuld. His arms go rigid against me. “Just tell the whole fucking group, tell them all that Xigbar and I have a piece of each other’s hearts, that we’re connected and you don’t want me going on missions.” I insist. “That’s what you’re going to say tonight, that’s what you’re going to tell her, so just tell everyone.” I repeat, in an all too amicable voice. When his touch starts to hesitate, I burn. “Say it!” I scream, zapping him and he lurches away, mouth agape.

Sora and Riku all but yank Kairi to them. I cross my arms to my chest and my eyes flick up to the sky.

If I could’ve just died in Agrabah--

“Have you been feeding my wife a bunch of horse shit? What is your problem, you’re my friend!” Lea shouts at Skuld, whose eyes sear, cold with hatred. Isa snatches up her hand. “Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare, Isa, do you think Rueki needs to be fucking victimized by another one of you because she may have pushed aside what you did to her, but that doesn’t mean she needs to forgive you, that either of us do!” He roars. And he sounds so convincing, the way he guns for me, the way he acts like he genuinely gives a shit. It must be so odd, being in Skuld’s shoes right now, watching the way he flips a switch on her, like she’s never seen before. I remember how bad that first betrayal bit. “You said you wanted to take care of her, and now you’re feeding her some kind of line--”

“I said I wanted to keep her in line, I can’t take care of someone dead set on self destruction.” Skuld snaps, crossing her arms to her chest. “And I never fed her anything. I said I knew about her little conversations with Luxu, I didn’t tell her you said anything to me.”

“But I’m not stupid. No one else knew. I trusted you. I keep trusting you when--” 

“Lea didn’t say anything, I did.” I would’ve missed Naminé there, in the cluster of bodies, were it not for her voice, ringing out like a bell. She twists her hands, staring at the ground, she certainly can’t meet my gaze, and I’m damn near certain I’m going to be sick.

I don’t know what smarts worse, this left field slap in the face from someone who bestowed a curse on me, or the fact that I threw someone to the wolves. Someone who loved me, someone who defended me, someone who said every single word I could’ve ever wanted him to and backed me without failing. Someone who was my red light, who kept his promise. And I couldn’t even be bothered to listen, I was so busy distancing myself from him.

Oh, dear Twilight, my heart throbs, sore and aching. I search for Lea’s eyes and when I find them, something very tangible settles onto my shoulder.

I screwed up. And I don’t recover from this.

“Really fucking shiesty of you, Nam. After all this shit, after everything you’ve done to her.” Roxas shakes his head, crossing his arms to his chest.

“I’m sorry that you felt this way. And that this heightened the tensions between Rueki and Skuld, but I will not apologize for what I did. There is no one else that would have held her accountale and...Rueki, you must understand, I cannot be passive in watching you stumble toward him. Toward Luxu.” She says. “I’ve been so idle for so long, and I can’t play the role I’d like, but I cannot--”

I don’t give a fuck what she ‘cannot.’ I don’t even realize I was moving until my palm collides with her cheek. 

She gasps, clutching her face.

“That was uncalled for.” Riku snaps, lurching toward me.

“Whatever.” I throw up a hand. 

“I don’t think it’s inappropriate to question whether or not you’re coherent enough for these missions, considering your deviant status.” Isa tells me.

“Cool. Vote on it and then tell me how I’m supposed to feel later.” I make a move to stomp off, but am frozen in my tracks at the sound of Lea calling my name.

Change my bad behavior, I plead. Fix me, alter me, tell me all is forgiven and that love is endless and that I can find sanctuary in his arms. Let him tell me he agrees and that we can’t live the lives we want here. Run away with me, just--do something. 

“Master Yen Sid wants to talk to you about the status of your darkness. You should probably mention Luxu to him too.” Lea’s words are stones thrown at me. I can’t even turn around, can’t bring myself to turn toward him. 

Instead, I march up the stairs to once more, let someone with backwards, convoluted theories tell me about how balance is what we need --though last time I met with him, he told us that darkness was bad and light was good and everything I’m still carrying with me now-- and that I can’t be afraid of Vanitas’ darkness but must learn to harness it, and that I must reject Luxu, but doesn’t give me indication as to how. 

Master Yen Sid is good for what he’s always good for, a preachy lecture in an intimidating voice, and a save too little too late.

I’m staring off at a symbol on his chalkboard, a symbol I know I’ve drawn before, in that transmutation circle I etched in the woods with Lea last year, when suddenly his voice is drowned out, muted by the static of the air around me.

“I think I’ve figured it out.” I tell Xigbar, who doesn’t speak this time, for once. “I call out to you at my lowest.” When I’m wishing anything would save me, when I’m on my knees, contemplating what more I could possibly do to make my own life fall apart so I can rebuild in its ashes.

“Well,” He draws. “We are connected for a reason. Maybe I can do something.” It’s a romantic notion, but I highly doubt he’s going to be the key to end my self inflicted melancholy. 

“I’m not looking for a quick fix, Xigbar. I want a solution.” He doesn’t seem to understand the weight of my words, I toy with the ends of my hair and curl a knee to my chest as I look to the chalkboard. “This isn’t right. This isn’t the way the world is supposed to be.”

He’s silent again, something I’ve rarely experienced until now and it leaves me oddly exhilarated and unnerved.

“You mean that.” He chuckles.

“Kind of my thing, isn’t it?” I ask. “I’m not in until I’m all in.” 

“All in.” He breathes the words and they send chills up my spine. “Fuck, kiddo. I wish you were actually here.” I think it should disturb me that I wish the same thing. But it doesn’t, and I do.

“I’m not an idiot, you know.” I squeeze my hands around my legs. “I’m not just… I’m not here to blindly serve your Master, I’m not going to kneel at his feet.”

“Oh, I’d hardly expect that. But you’re not an idiot. And you know we’re onto something.” He says. I look out the window, at milky stars filling the sky.

“Yeah. This isn’t how the world should be.” I agree. “This can’t be how it should be.” 

“It wasn’t always.” He reminds me. A tiny smile flicks to life on my face.

“Tell me about it.” I urge.

“About my childhood?” He asks.

“About your life, about how this world could look.” I say “I want you to tell me everything.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter friends! Anyone else casually drowning in FF7? If I didn't make a rule to myself to not start any projects until I finish this one (so that I don't end up confusing the characters I'm writing) I would be cranking out some ff7 shit. Anyhow, this chapter has one of my favorite scenes so far in it, so enjoy.

XVIII.

People pretend to need me, and I think it’s supposed to be comforting. 

My friends tell me no hard feelings and that they all love me and this is just a way for them to show that. They say darkness has taken too much from me already, and without a Keyblade, I’m not really able to help seal off the worlds, so I should rest up. If I hear anyone else tell me that this is supposed to be relaxing to me, I might consider ripping my own ears off. 

My friends tell me that this is for the best, and that they know I don’t have the temperment to sit around at home and do nothing and that my ties to Vanitas are invaluable, so of course I should be the one piloting the Gummi Ship, driving heroes from place to place, watching them cheer as they leave the ship and come back laughing and embracing, dripping in the glitter of their own victory.

There is an exponential increase in how many missions end in success now that I’m out of the running.

My friends tell me everything is going well, that they have ticked off every world on Cid’s list, save for the one’s Vanitas already overtook, and then some. They tell me they’re sealing off other worlds now, that they’re leaps and bounds ahead of where the Master of Masters is, probably. My friends tell me what good it is that I’m adjusting so well to this very new and indirect way of doing things. 

Lea can’t even seem to look at me.

I hope my friends will tell me how to feel, how to act. I hope they take the guesswork out of my life so I can float away and disappear into fairytales.

\--

Once upon a time there was a child, who was a boy but wasn’t human. He was made of the tainted fragments of light, corrupted by the war, and was named as such, after flaws, after corruption, after sin. The thing that made him was created much in the same way, a father, a Master, spawned in the very first clash of light and darkness, though with constant injection of light, he was near perfect, and so he made his children and the world they lived in, of that same synthetic light and kept the darkness firmly out.

Many lived happily, peacefully, blissfully. The sun rose each day without blemish and set every night in a watercolor portrait and children were allowed to play. More importantly, they were allowed to dream, and those dreams fueled the world for a long time. So long that the Master didn’t even realize that the synthetic light had faded. He didn’t realize it until darkness was fully settled into the bones of man.

Back then, the boy didn’t understand, not fully. He knew things and he knew of things and he was hungry, devouring knowledge, insatiable for it, but he knew what the Master told him to be true, and that was that all would be well. The boy would succeed in his mission, which he hardly understood the weight of then--what sort of trial was waiting? Waiting wasn’t anything impressive--and gathering the new Union Leaders, a new group meant to offer a permanent solution to the problem that darkness provides. And in reward, the boy would be granted a human all his own, a girl who would match the pieces of his heart oh so perfectly and soothe the corruption in his light, until darkness was sealed away forever. 

For darkness could never be destroyed, only bound.

And bound eternal, it shall be.

\--

“Do you think you wanna talk to me tonight or are you just gonna lay there and be miles away?” Lea’s voice sounds off from over my shoulder, where I lay on my side, cheek pressed into my pillow. How rare it is, anymore, that I hear a voice outside of Xigbar’s, how odd it is to be trapped with thoughts other than my own. There’s a relief in my isolation, in the distance I keep, in the retrospect it grants me. In the way it is so plainly obvious to see that I was right, that I should have trusted myself, that my anxiety was learned, not earned and that I should have trusted my gut when it told me that the solution my friends had in store was hardly the only one, or even the right one for that matter. 

Balance is too fickle, it’s impossible and depends on a grotesque world to be something greater than it is. I’m hardly so optimistic, and it’s silly and improbable for me to pretend to be. 

“It’s not like you’re talking to me.” I tell him, and it’s not that I particularly care. Lea is allowed to be dumb and easily swayed, that’s his prerogative. If he is so desperate to correct the mistakes of his past that he can’t see the potentials of his future, that’s perfectly okay. I can be clever enough for both of us.

“After that big show the other day? Letting everyone around know how little you trust me, how little you think I think of you? How loud do I need to scream that I love you for you to believe it?” He snaps. And it’s not that I don’t believe it, it’s just--

I guess I can see it. The way Isa lost traction, the way he lost sight of Lea. It doesn’t excuse a fucking thing Isa did and I am so beyond turning a blind eye to his past, but I do understand it. How can Lea get so upset about the people he loves looking for a different path than his when he’s so rigid, when he won’t bend, when he wouldn’t take my hand and disappear with me when that was all I needed, when I begged him to--

“Why the fuck would I trust you?” I snort. “You lie to me every chance you get, and when you don’t, you patronize me, make me feel like a fucking idiot for what I know is right and--”

“Is this about you wanting to run away the other day?” He balks. He won’t even let me talk. I roll my eyes, leaning into my pillow. “When the hell did it get like this, Rueki? This isn’t us. This isn’t you.”

Fuck him.

I whip over, slamming him by the chest into the bed. His eyes fly wide as I climb onto him, throwing a leg over his waist to straddle him. He’s wearing only boxers and in a tank top and a pair of leggings, there’s little enough of a barrier, there’s an allowance for friction.

“Ruek--” He begins to protest, I slam a hand onto his mouth and rock my hips into him, a little faster, a little harder, pressing my cunt into him. And it’s exhilarating, lighting my nerve endings up like fire, lighting the mark on my hip up, searing it as I ride the ebb and flow of our relationship, as I straddle the control, as I grind and whine until I’m nearing the edge, and fuck him when I’m done. Fuck this, fuck him, fuck everything, he wants to flaunt the way I need him more than he needs me, fuck that. I cannot wait to show him the way I can claim, the way I can control, the way I can get myself off and watch him whine and show him how little he--

A hand clamps around my wrists, Lea throws me off of him and into the bed, when I turn to look at him, his eyes are blown out, pupils tiny pinpricks. 

“What the fuck, Rueki?” I don’t know if he’s angry anymore. I don’t know if he’s pissed or hurt, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel about all of it, because he’s not lecturing me about it, but I don’t think I feel good. I think something still feels so wrong. So dark.

Blips of Vanitas flash before my eyes, sitting in a room alone, staring at the ceiling, windows blacked out.

My heart pounds in my chest, I rub my eyes. I need to block out this and him. I know what I need, and any allowance of darkness isn’t acceptable. No, I know better.

I am enlightened, I’ve seen all sides, I’m educated in ways my comrades won’t even consider.

“I’m going for a walk.” I push myself up after weaseling out from underneath him.

“No, you’re going to lay back down and we’re going to talk about this, I don’t know what the fuck you thought you were doing, but that wasn’t love, what you were trying to do wasn’t--”

“Because you know so much about culminating a healthy relationship.” I toss my hair over my shoulder, wondering if he finds me half as lovely as Skuld as I don haughtiness like a second skin, just like her.

“You can get the fuck back here or you can sleep somewhere else tonight.” Lea snaps. 

“Cool.” I reply.

“You don’t get to just act like this, you don’t get to sabatoge this when I’ve done so much, when I was there for you when you were a fucking monster and--” Oh? The truth comes out. I wheel back around and catch Lea looking horrified with his own words. “Sweetheart, I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t, you know we’re not good at...not saying hurtful shit when we’re fighting, that wasn’t fair to you, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh no, it was fair.” I disagree evenly, though I press my fingernails into my palms as I slip on a pair of sneakers. “I’m a monster. Warn all your friends I’m coming to eat them. I’m hiding in the closet, I’m waiting under the bed. Don’t turn the light out.” And with that, I turn on my heel and disappear out of the room. 

\--

For a very long time the boy daydreamed about the girl who was made to be his, his ‘alchemist’, someone with the power to condense and break apart the remnants of dark data and cleanse the realm once and for all. What could she be like? Fair, just, bright, lovely? As a child, he dreamed all of these things and considered what it might be like to have a very best friend, someone he might lay awake with at night, someone who might catch fireflies with him and refuse to release them, no matter how the Master urged otherwise. Someone that might curl into him when he read books at night and exchange secrets in the dark. Would she be as hungry for knowledge too, or would she be strong where he is cunning? Would she be steadfast where he is quick? The boy wonders about her endlessly and begs the Master again, despite his sibling’s protests, ‘tell the story again, recite the prophecy once more’.

As an adolescent, he handed his key down to the boy with the blue eyes and dark hair, handed it down and watched as the world blossomed. The data that the Master created crumbled to darkness, taking with it the white haired boy that Ava had been betting so thoroughly on. His favorite sister was a miserable gambler, and with that boy came a grotesque Heartless, the same sort of thing that came of the girl that the Master had wanted to join the Dandelions, but was struck down before she could. The adolescent handed down his Master’s Keyblade and ventured on and thought this journey to be quite amusing, and considered the alchemist once more. Would she be playful, would she hunger for adventure like he? He sees women, human women and understands his namesake, and contemplates the way his alchemist will look, the way her body might feel beneath his, the way she might bat her eyes at him. He is lust, luxuria, surely the master would hardly deprive him of what he craves most, when above all he trusts the Master.

He’s discovered world after world when he becomes a young man and starts to wonder when this could all end. Waiting didn’t seem like an arduous task once upon a time, but that was...well, he’s lost track of how long it’s been. Lost track, and with each time he hops bodies, he feels his light grow more and more corrupted, sees darkness growing at the edges of it. Surely this must end soon. Surely his alchemist is on the way, and he searches for her in anything and anyone. Everyone. Searches for her harder than he keeps track of No Name. Temporarily, he even loses sight of the Key altogether, as he tries to find her in strangers. Because she marks settling in, lying down, resting his head. Just a break, just a little break. In her arms, at her side. Every morning, every night, he’ll have an equal. Will she be his opposite as well, or so similar they blend almost perfectly? Will she shine upon his world, or cast only a serene glow. He only hopes she’ll be easy, be simple, a breath of fresh air in something that has become more taxing than it was supposed to be. Did the Master account for all this? Is the young man really supposed to succeed through all of this?

He’s a man when he glimpses her first, and well, she’s not what he expected to want from her, but it makes sense. That child with missing teeth and the terrible cowlic. It doesn’t matter if she grows up beautiful or not, it doesn’t matter if she’s smart or just sweet, it doesn’t matter if she’s strong or just quick. Just so long as she grows and lives and can succeed in what she’s meant to do, live to her full purpose. The man just wants her to grow the way he knows she can, and it’s strange what the Master meant in gifting her to him, but a daughter isn’t so bad. Perhaps this kind of unconditional love is the only thing that can cleanse his corruption, can make up for what lust lacks.

He’s old, he’s ancient, brittle to his bones and so desperate for an end in sight when she appears again, and this time, for the first time, it all makes sense. The way she quirks a brow, the way she’s witty, the way she doesn’t bow down but tucks into books and is beyond clever. He could whisper in the dark and catch fireflies with this woman, could bathe in simplistic wonder with her. It’s in the curve of her waist, the fullness of her lips, the particular shade of green in her eyes and fuck, the way she looks in shorts. She would fit so wonderfully beneath him--or atop him--and indulge his every filthy whim. It’s in her grit, in the way she can’t back down, in the way she struggles through losing battles because she won’t be suppressed. In this world of roles and hierarchy, she is a breath of fresh air, not easy, not simple, but as crisp and delicious as he could want her. It’s in the way that she can do no wrong. She is insufferable. Ignorant, gullible, violent, moody, self righteous, with a mouth from hell. But he got her here, he kept her alive, she’s grown, she’s blossoming. She is not a friend or a lover or a wife or a daughter. She doesn’t fit so easily into one thing, but rather, fits into everything. His alchemist is everything he can and will ever want and everything he is, is all she will ever need.

\--

Seasons are changing in Twilight Town, the mild fall fading into a winter that pales in comparison to the harshness of Transmute City. It’s too warm to snow, but still icy against my skin as flakes fall from the sky, dissolving before they touch ground. They’re wet, melting into the mess of my hair.

“Tell me a story.” I plead, because I know he hears me, I know he feels me.

“I’ve already told you the big one, kiddo.” Xigbar chuckles.

“Then another.” I insist. “I don’t want to be alone through this.” 

“Through what you have to do tomorrow?” He asks. I smooth a palm up the goosebumps on my calf as I take a seat in the cool, damp earth. “You’re not suddenly getting cold feet, are you?”

“No.” I scoff. 

“Then that little psycho girl stint you just pulled with Axel was--”

“None of your fucking business.” I snap. I can sense his discontent and I scrub a hand back through my hair, feeling the fuzzy piece that’s starting to grow back. “You have everything else I can give. I’m doing exactly what you want me to.”

“What you want to do, too.” He corrects. My eyes narrow. He isn’t wrong.

“Yeah. And that’s why I’m going to keep on this. Whatever you need, I’ll do. But you have to understand, I’m doing this for him. Because of him.” I remind him. 

“I’d be lying if I said this was how I wanted it all to go down.” Xigbar tells me. I snicker. Misery fucking loves company, and I can relate all too well. When all of this, every last bit, is everything I’ve ever wanted, and it’s as unsatisfying as being left with an empty plate. 

“Listen. I believe in this. I believe in you. I believe in this cause.” And I need something so bad, to hold onto, to believe in. “I trust you, Xigbar. And I want to be around you right now. That has to count for something.” To him, to me, to the way this is going, the route I’ve agreed to take. 

“You don’t need to blow smoke up my ass.” He offers. My shoulders tense. “Just be you, say what you want to say, do what you need to do. It’s different, remember? The way it’s gonna be with me. You don’t need to be anything more than what you are right now.” I don’t need to be better is what he’s saying and my heart warms. I am so low right now, the filthiest I’ve ever been, and yet, there’s a power in knowing that I am at rock bottom and he’s just there. Telling me that this is alright, not shouting at me, not insisting that I be better. It’s easy to slink under the ultra low standards that Xigbar has set for me. I press my head against a rock behind me, my eyelids flutter shut.

“Nothing more.” I roll the words over in my mouth, savoring the weight of them on my tongue. I can be selfish, I can fixate on my own needs, I can be everything raw and wrong and--

When something calls me, I can chase it. When I see an enemy, I can synthesize something and destroy it. I can unleash my magic, unleash myself, I can pull and push every bit of my empathy link, I can smash the darkness at Vanitas’ feet. The prospect of being so unabashedly me is something I didn’t realize I lost along the way, until now. No wonder things have felt as distant as they’ve been. Lea’s not been wrong, saying that I’m not myself, and I’m not sure at what point I let go of myself and dropped her along the way, but Xigbar being around has been grand for something. I know who I am, I know what I want. The things that seemed so radiant once, about Skuld, are things I’m seeing in myself and shouldn’t have cast aside in the first place. I know what the correct world looks like, and I know that at all costs, I want to chase it.

“So Wonderland, tomorrow, right?” I confirm. Xigbar snickers, obviously warm with pride. Does it feel like candy, I wonder, for him to know how comforted he’s got me feeling?

“Yeah. The second your friends step off your ship, I’ll meet you there.” He agrees.

“What makes you so certain I can do this?” When all signs point to no, when I’ve never had any experience with this, when I don’t even have to tools to--

“Just trust me when I say I am.” He chuckles. “As if I’d gamble on this one. It’s in your soul.”

\--

The boy isn’t a boy anymore, he’s a man, he’s ancient, he’s tired deep into his bones and he watches every thread line up, everything fall into place. It’s airtight, the Master’s plan, but the boy never realized what would have to happen to the state of the realm to bring that plan to fruition. 

The colors have faded, or maybe just darkened. Anymore, it doesn’t feel right or normal to watch children run around with real swords, swinging like their lives depend on it. Lives are lived and Heartless and Nobodies are common issues, normal occurrences. There is very little left that hasn’t been tainted, and he sees that in the scars on his alchemist’s body as they lay beside each other, in the dirt in the Keyblade Graveyard, surrounded by the fruits of his siblings failure to prevent the first war. Now he’s watching the second one happen, waiting for it, letting the dust settle between him and her. Her legs, her neck, her hands, every square inch of her is marked by this war. She’s bleeding, she’s panicking, she’s died more times than she can take, and he can’t even turn over and promise her that it will all be okay. Even if he did, she wouldn’t trust him. 

And that is the moment he understands, truly understands. The creature he daydreamed about as a boy could never have been produced in a world like this. After losing her parents so young, after he sent her away in a last ditch effort to keep her alive. Even his best efforts to keep her untainted would never have amounted to anything. She needs more than him, more than every source of light in this world. She needs what he had, the way the sun shined when he was a boy, the way the flowers bloomed, the way every muscle in his body uncurled when he climbed into bed because all was safe and right and good. 

Kingdom Hearts is summoned, and he thinks he’s nearly there, thinks the worlds have finally been reset, thinks that his alchemist can finally breathe easy. But the prophecy never promised peace would be easy and Kingdom Hearts never needed to complete its cleanse. It was summoned. It was summoned and that is all the Master needs to pick up the pieces and put the world back together again.

For her.

\--

I drop Lea, Skuld and Isa off in some world called Sherwood Forest. The latter two don’t say a word to me and in fact, Skuld seems especially exasperated until the second we land and she leaps out of the ship.

Lea’s the last to leave and as he does, he catches my wrist in his hand. His eyes stare out the doors of the ship, but his grip tightens around me.

“Last night was...not my best.” He says.

“Not mine either.” I agree, hands shaking, teeth dragging across my lips, unsure how the fuck he hasn’t caught onto me, how Naminé hasn’t ratted me out to everyone. I’m thankful, I suppose, that if he wants to have a moment like this, he’s not looking me in the eye. It’s not easy like it was with Xigbar, it isn’t so simple. But Lea’s hands burn so sweetly into me and I recall everything.

The way he slammed me into the too tiny table in the library, the saccharine overheating the first time I woke up beside him, the way I swelled and came alive as we pushed and pulled each other to the furthest extent, how easy the choice was to let the shark Noise devour me and not him. The first time we said we loved each other, the words we used to avoid it ‘nothing at all’. How we died for each other, how we lived for each other, how we trained and fought and learned to speak to each other, to grow with and not against each other. The look in his eyes when he proposed to me, the sheer giddiness that followed, the way he pulled me out from inside myself and did exactly what he said in anger yesterday, loved me when I was a monster. 

I bring his knuckles up to my lip and kiss them so lightly.

“I love you, Rueks. I know you don’t agree with this, but I’m doing it for you.”

He exits the ship and I finally exhale.

“Back atcha.”

\--

I stumble into Wonderland like it’s the end of the world, feet tumbling faster than I can move, through disembarkment, into the Bizarre Room, into the correct entrance where I am met by a mass of black leather and a single searching golden eye.

My stomach hits the ground, my hands go cold. It takes everything in me and then some to not reach out and touch him right now. That would be weird, I remind myself, that’s not who I am, that’s not what this is about. But there’s a strange sort of intimacy in seeing Xigbar in person for the first time in so long, and in the close quarters of this tiny room. It was one thing to find him in the Keyblade Graveyard, it was another before I knew he was Luxu. And now? After having spent so much time in my heart, in my mind, coming to terms with the fact that the person who has offered me unconditional understanding and the promise for the life I want is actually a person and isn’t just a figment of my own fucked up mind is downright surreal. 

Is he taller? Will he disappear entirely if I reach out to him? 

“Well, well. In the flesh.” He cocks his head to the side, jagged smile quirking his lips upward, pressing into the tattered scar on his face. 

“Yeah. It’s weird.” I say, licking my lips. He makes a move to tuck my hair behind my ear and I let him, mostly to feel the brush of leather gloves against my skin. Which I do. Which means this is real. Which means I can actually do something to save my friends. Which means I can actually have the life I want to live. 

I could sob. I could actually weep. 

“How do I do this?” I ask as his hand falls away from me. “You told me that I’m the only one who can reverse the seal Lea put on this world, when he blocked Vanitas out, but I can’t even get into the world’s heart on my own. You’ve gotta unlock that for me.” I huff, setting a hand on my hip, like this is exhausting, like I actually find my freedom to be more important than the promise of sweet relief.

As if.

“You’re kidding me.” Xigbar arches his visible eyebrow.

“There wasn’t even a joke in that statement.” I wrinkle my nose. 

“Kid, are you telling me that you haven’t even figured out how to unlock a damn heart with your Keyblade?” He scoffs. The look on my face must say a lot. His eyes go wide, he swallows dryly. “Well you at least have a handle on conjuring it, right?”

“Dude, I don’t have a Keyblade.” How is he forgetting this gaping hole in his plan? 

Abruptly, Xigbar’s face shifts into something pained looking, his jaw clicks, he cracks his knuckles. 

“Come on little Rueki, please tell me you’re fucking with me.” He says. My hands go cold, my face flushes. Once again this failing is screaming in my face and now it’s going to deprive me of everything I’m willing to claim. “Kiddo, I bequeathed you last year in the damn Keyblade Graveyard.”

“You what?” I blanch.

“What do you think that parting gift was? So you could be a hero or whatever the hell it was. Did you seriously not once try to summon a weapon this entire time?” He sputters.

“I can summon a weapon right now, dickhead.” And with that, La Luxure appears in my hands, weight quite familiar. He looks down at the blades, at me and nods.

“You uh...ever consider summoning anything else? React in the moment, call anything that could defend you to your hands without thinking of those?” He asks.

“Why would I?” I snark back. He gives me this exasperated look, like he’s far too old for this, and to his credit, he actually is. “You get one free humans are stupid joke. Save it for when it counts.” I grin and he laughs and the moment feels like time isn’t sensitive and I’m not nervous. 

“Just visualize your heart’s essence, feel its power centering in the palm of your hand. You’re in tune with your heart, you shouldn’t have a problem with that part.” He tells me, and he’s right, all I have to do is hold my hand out and in almost an instant, a new weight fills my hand. The handle is round and not actually a handle at all, but rather knuckles to slip my fingers through with a hoop at the base. It’s quite possibly the shortest Keyblade I’ve ever seen, but made of the same sleek, smooth black as the handle. There’s a brown buckle wrapped just before the blades--a jagged, double sided trio. It’s alchemic, it got the very same range as my Claw and is perfectly balanced in my palm. Every single thing in this sword is made for me, perfected to my last need. Even the tiny dangling charm, shaped like sea salt ice cream. 

I don’t realize I’m gaping at it until I feel a hand on my arm. My eyes flick up to Xigbar’s and my grip around the blade tightens impossibly so, like I’m afraid someone’s going to take it from me. Because I am.

“Holy shit.” I breathe, experimentally swinging the sword around, delirious laughter spilling uncontrollably from my lips. “Is this real?” I ask, banishing the blade just so I can summon it again, laughing harder this time.

“You really thought Blue Moon was on the docket to get one before you?” He asks me, and my insides warm just so. My every insecurity, every last fear is his to cure. We’ve been amicable for so little time, but I could reach out and hug him, were my feet not properly on the ground. “It’s gonna feel good, kiddo.”

“What, rubbing this in Isa’s face?” I lift an eyebrow, like I’m actually going to be able to flaunt this thing and not make summoning it look like a complete surprise the first time I summon it in front of everyone. 

“Not having to fight what you were made to do, embracing all of those strengths you’ve been told are wrong. Getting to be every bit of yourself.” He smiles, the softest little spark in his firecracker eyes. “And to know the world you’re living in is the product of your actions, you might be the only creature in this realm that’s ever given this place a proper stirring.”

“Even Xehanort?” I snort.

“Remind me again who finally broke him down?” He inclines an eyebrow, and something akin to pride, only far stronger, shoots through me. 

“Can you maybe criticize me a little? This doesn’t feel realistic.” I make a face. He contemplates it a moment. 

“Well, you couldn’t even figure out how to summon a Keyblade, I mean jeez, I didn’t realize they made humans that stupid.” He smirks. I roll my eyes, but can’t fight my own smile. 

“Why don’t you stop making shitty jokes and show me how to save the world.” I ask.

“Well, you do the honors, little Rueki.” He dips into a low bow. I snatch a vial off of the table and take a swig of it before handing it off to him. In a breath, I’m tiny, and then so is he. Just as Skuld did before, I aim my Keyblade at the Keyhole, and just as capable as she was, I send us straight into the world’s heart.

My eyes search as I recall the steps I took to unlock this world, but before I can even take a step toward the sphere, Xigbar’s already got it in his hand. He tosses it into the air and catches it, face glowing in the red light. My heart clenches in my chest.   
“Race you to the door?” I ask.

“Ha!” He barks. “As if.” He hardly has the same detestation I do when it comes to teleportation. Abruptly, he’s on the ceiling, half way down the room, upside down. He offers me a wink and I break out in the most ridiculous smile as I chase him down the hall. “Gonna have to be a lot fas--” He begins, but I shoot a hand forward and a bolt of lightning with it, zapping it out of his hand. He yelps and drops it, shaking his hand out just in time for me to slide out and nab the sphere. Dirt kicks up in my wake, landing in my hair, but the playful look he’s casting from above me, as he rights himself, is satisfying enough. 

I grin and toss the sphere back into the air, he catches it with one hand and offers me the other. Which I take, and climb to my feet. 

“So why can I open up this Keyhole but no one else?” I ask, as Xigbar sets the sphere in the door. It opens up for us and I follow after him, noticing the tensing of his shoulders. Fuck, don’t quit on me now, not when I was...actually having fun…

“Well, it was Axel who sealed it.” He shrugs blithely, picking up the next sphere. I make a move to steal it from him. He lifts an eyebrow. I just bite my lip until he hands it to me and I place it into the proper slot. 

“There are other people he’s connected to.” Other people he’s a lot closer to now, all things considered. It’s not hard to visualize Skuld’s porcelain face. Or how pissed she’s going to be when she realizes it is too late to undo my actions. 

“He gave you that mark though, right?” Xigbar lifts an eyebrow, emphasis on ‘you’.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask as we find our way into the world’s heart. My phone starts buzzing in my pocket. Without even thinking, I make a face and silence it. I notice that his eye is still on me and I do my best to look especially impatient like I’m going to stomp off if he doesn’t give me answers.

I guess we both know me better, though he’s probably the only one who thinks so highly of me anymore. 

“Yeah, as if I’m gonna open that can of worms with you.” He shakes his head, and while I’d like to snap at him, I’ve found a far more effective technique for getting what I want out of him.

“You’re the only one who knows and you’re not even going to tell me?” My mouth fixes into a severe pout, and I do notice the way his gaze lingers on my lips, fixating in ways that I didn’t think were possible when it came to me. 

Certainly Lea must have looked at me like this once, maybe before--

But Lea has never held me this high, never fancied me a deity, a goddess he longs only to worship. Lea’s love comes with so many conditions that I could suffocate beneath the weight of them.

“Seriously, it’s not something you want on your mind today.” He brushes me off and I just huff, setting a hand on my hip.

“Well, tell me what to do, then.” I urge. He smirks a little, like this is still fun for him, like he’s walking a hero straight into their destiny. 

“Raise your Keyblade, point it at the Heart.” He instructs, so I do. “Close your eyes.” That feels hella campy, but I do anyway, despite an eyeroll. “Do you feel its aura?” He asks.

My brow puckers, I’m about to make a remark about this being dumb and illogical, but with my Keyblade raised in its direction, there is a stirring, a warming. I feel light brush across my cheekbones and sense its colors, reds, pinks, purples, greens. They don’t feel right in the slightest, each brush a too convincing lie against my skin. Whatever this is, it’s trying too hard and in that effort, it’s draining the world, sucking the remnants of anything good straight from the core. 

“It’s kind of...gross.” I wrinkle my face. Xigbar barks out a laugh. 

“Congrats, genius. You’ve just discovered the difference between data and real light.” He says. “Pretty different from that stuff your little princess just spews, huh?” 

“Very.” I agree. This stuff is toxic, what sort of person could be fighting to keep this in place? How can Yen Sid be preaching the importance of this sort of balance when everything about it feels repulsive. “So how do I break it down?” I ask.

“Do you feel a barrier?” He asks. Wrinkling my brow further, I concentrate, trying to sense some sort of protective layer, which I do but--

“It feels paper thin.” I reply.

“Only to you.” He tells me. “It’s rock hard to me, but that’s why it’s gotta be you, kiddo. Next part’s gonna be fun. You’ve gotta think of your Keyblade as an extension of your own energy, it’s not your weapon anymore, it’s your very being. And you’re going to use all of that energy to break down that barrier.”

A smirk quirks the edges of my lips.

“Easy.” And it is, like pushing my empathy link, it’s a shot of energy, a burst from within me, there’s a fire deep within my belly and with it, I smash the barrier with an audible ring.

The toxic light from the heart of the world spills out and nearly drowns us in its wake. My eyes fly open, I back into Xigbar, and silence my buzzing phone, once more. 

“That didn’t collapse anything.” I choke, as though the place is genuinely poisoning me. And the longer I’m in here, the more I feel it taxing me, bringing out the most grotesque parts of my heart.

“All you did was break it down, little Rueki. You did all the heavy lifting, it just needs a shot of darkness. You remember how to do that, don’t you?” He raises a brow. 

“Of course.” I say, mouth twisting. It’s been so long, but it comes just as easy as riding a bike. My worst impulses bubble up inside of me, scratching and clawing their way out, something demonic grows stronger as it forces it way out of me, begging me to consume, to devour, to destroy.

This will get me high, this will keep me going, this will banish every second worth of ache I have ever felt in my existence. 

Like a fist, something black grips the world’s heart and straight up crushes it. My eyes go huge. Xigbar’s visible eye is massive as well, and I prepare for the lecture, for the inevitable. That my inner darkness is too strong, that I’m dangerous, that I’m going to ruin everything for the people I love and I’m not fit to be around them.

I should be locked away, I should--

“That empathy link sure did wonders.” He praises, to my dismay. 

“What?” I ask.

“That was damn good on your first go.” He tells me and my heart swells, screeching with pleasure. Tell me more. “But we’ve gotta get out of here.” 

“Right.” I agree, as my phone starts to vibrate again. I roll my eyes, huffing as I follow Xigbar out of the world’s heart, checking the device.

Three missed calls from Lea. One voicemail.

Fuck.

“Rueks, where the fuck are you? This world’s going down, we--Larxene and Marluxia were here with Vanitas, they overwhelmed us and--shit!” 

A rustling, then the message ends.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

“I have to go.” I choke. Xigbar’s eye meets mine. “I have to….I’ll talk to you later but I’ve gotta--” And despite how much I hate teleporting, I do, straight to my ship, which I don’t allow time to warm up. It roars, I key in coordinates and smash the thing into hyperdrive. Please, please, please let him be fine, let him be safe, let him and the rest of them be alive.

I make it to Sherwood Forest in record time, and find a black, empty void in its wake.

\--

I couldn’t possibly fly back to Twilight Town fast enough, pressing the ship into hyperdrive, soaring around meteors and Gummi Blocks with saucer like eyes and a hammering heart.

I did it. I freed a world from its own data. I broke down a barrier, I’m going to save this realm from itself. 

But if Lea isn’t waiting for me at home, none of this will be worth it. 

I can’t even keep track of numbers as I count down in my head, trying to soothe my frayed nerves. I don’t beg for Xigbar’s voice as a remedy, I don’t even really think about anything. My whole mind is erupting, broken, shutting down, unable to conjure up anything other than Lea’s name as a mantra.

Please let him be safe. Nothing else matters, just let him be okay.

With the jerkiest, least skilled landing I have ever suffered through--barring the crash landing in The World That Never Was-- I yank the keys out of my ship, open the door and go tumbling through my own backyard, shoving away trees and branches, leaping over rocks until I’m at the backdoor, right at the entrance of the kitchen, which I throw open, breath heavy, shoulders heaving.

My eyes find a telltale shock of flaming hair, my hand claps my heart. I throw the door closed like nothing matters and leap at him taking Lea’s angular face into my hands.

“I’m so sorry.” I breathe. “I’m sorry, I took the ship out, I just needed to take a break and look at the stars and when I got back you were gone. I was so worried Lea, I’m so, so sorry.” I’m going to have to find a lot better cover when it comes to sneaking away with Xigbar, there is no goal in this world worth losing Lea, and if he’s so dead set at being on the frontlines, then I need to come up with a better plan. I can’t shove him away, like I did last night. Not when he is the very reason I want a better world.

He turns away from me, looking to Skuld, who sits on top of the kitchen counter, to Roxas, who is pacing in the living room, to Naminé, who leans upon the refrigerator, wearing a pale pink blanket over her shoulders like a shrug, hands laced.

My stomach sours.

“You little snitch.” I breathe.

“Don’t you dare.” Lea says in a voice like ash, void of passion, all decay. “Don’t you even think about starting in on her, if she didn’t read your fucking thoughts, Skuld, Isa and I would have died with Sherwood Forest! We’d have been fucked if she didn’t open a portal for us, so don’t you even… don’t you dare..”

“Lea…” Isa begins in protest. His best friend’s voice rips Lea out of his chair and away from me. Kairi scrambles down the hall, Sora and Riku at her heels, clearly protesting something. She claps both her hands on the archway, tears falling down her freckled cheeks.

“Well?” She demands, voice high and hysterical. “She’s lying, right?”

“I don’t think Naminé has a reason to lie about this.” Aqua murmurs, in a low, level voice.

“Aqua, please.” Amaya starts. “Everyone, don’t you think we owe it to Rueki to offer some understanding? A listening ear?”

“I’m beyond a listening fucking ear, Amaya.” Lea throws a hand up. “Look me in the eye and tell me he wasn’t with you. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t have one of your little heart to hearts yesterday, and I’ll forgive it all. Just convince me, Rueki, that fucking Xigbar had no hand in this and that you didn’t crawl to him the second I didn’t give you an answer you wanted, and we will work through this.”

My mouth is dry. My skin sparks with anxiety, my hair starts to rustle, and though I know there is no wind, I realize quite quickly that I am my own airsource. A storm is beginning within me and I--

Once again, I can’t even appreciate the power of my own abilities. Once again, I’m being falted, blamed, ostracized.

“I am doing this for you, Lea.” I start.

“You can’t even fucking try.” He chokes, shaking his head, carding a hand back through his hair. “Are you fucking him, too?”

“Omigod, this is so not even related to that!” I scoff at the same time Kairi shrieks at Lea to ‘step off’. I meet her eyes, and she must see something so fragile in mine, because she stomps right past him, to me, wrapping her arms so delicately around me. “You won’t see it, because you don’t know what it was like. Yes, Xigbar put this all in my head, but do you know how he sold me on following him? By showing me the truth. Not this awful world, manipulated by superhumans like Skuld showed you, but the truth. Someplace peaceful, someplace void of darkness. The Realm of Light was never meant to have any dark trickling over.”

“Kairi, I want you to step away from her.” Riku pleads.

“You can go to hell.” Kairi rolls her eyes and squeezes me tighter. But I can’t return the gesture. 

“No, you can.” Skuld clambers down from the countertop, graceful as a ballerina. She sets a hand on Lea’s forearm, and I can’t even help it.

“Shit!” Kairi curses, leaping off of me after just having been electrocuted. All eyes fall on me, Kairi makes a face. “Okay, come on, I’m not the only one she’s accidentally done that to! 

“Why would anyone in the room believe that was an accident?” Skuld asks.

“Because you’ve been out to get her since day one?” Roxas huffs. 

“Because this is what she’s been made to do since day one!” Skuld thrusts a hand out. “She was born for this, and he’s been planting seeds in her head since she was a child, I mean hell, that book he gave you when you were little is the only way you could’ve restored Daybreak Town! You were made for him, even your best friends didn’t think you could refuse him! You’re weak.” Her blade appears in her hand. Ven leaps to his feet.

“Skuld, you can’t think that’s the answer!” Ven insists.

“If you had the chance to take out that man who started the last war, Xehanort, when he was weak, you would have.” Skuld accuses.

“No I wouldn’t.” Ven shakes his head.

“Well you should have.” And she leaps over to me, blade drawn back, scream at the tip of her tongue. 

Backbiter appears in my hands and smashes against Starlight, letting out a roar all its own. Skukd’s eyes go huge. She jumps back, reevaluating. Her blade disappears.

“He bequeathed you, didn’t he?” She asks. I don’t answer and she laughs, this sickening, high and mighty sound. “Have you been standing by him this whole time?” 

No victory party for Rueki, no celebration, no insistence that I deserve this weapon, meant to protect the light. I’m drowning in the accusations and there’s not even a fucking hand, nothing to part the waters for me. These people I love are so blinded that they’re incapable of even fathoming that I might be out for them and not me. There is no way they could paint me beyond villainous. 

“If you even have to ask that question, you don’t know who Rueki is.” Del’s voice sounds off at the edge of the living room. He’s sitting on the floor beside Amaya and I notice Lucidia is pointedly absent. 

“I think the fact of the matter is, I know all too well who Rueki is. I have seen what she’s capable of, even when you all didn’t want to believe it.” Skuld says, crossing her arms to her chest. She turns to Lea, eyes softening momentarily, and again, she sets a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be right.”

She didn’t want to be right. Didn’t want to be right, but has been feeding this to him the entire time. She’s been placing bugs in his ear not to trust me, that something is wrong with me, that my way of thinking is distorted, that I am spellbound by someone other than him. I try to meet Lea’s eyes, but they’re on her. So fixated on her.

“I did choose Xigbar.” I spit out and am all too satisfied when all eyes, even his, find me. “I chose his side because he’s right, but more importantly, he treats me like I am a human being. He treats me with dignity. He didn’t act like I was a fucking selfish idiot when I told him I didn’t think another war was the answer, he helped me come up with a solution.”

“Please, he’s brain washing you.” Lea rolls his eyes.

“Which is nothing like you’ve ever done.” I snarl.

“Throw it in my face again, Rueki. I didn’t fucking crumble for you, so you go running right toward someone who’s absolutely obsessed with you, damn, it’s not like you’ve ever run away from a relationship when things got hard before.” He taunts. My face grows hot while my body simultaneously turns icy.

“Lea!” Amaya balks.

“That was fucking uncalled for!” Del snaps.

“I don’t need you two defending me!” I put a hand up, palms buzzing as electric current snaps and crackles off of them. “You want to make threats? How many times have I told you that trying to smash me into the mould that you want me to be, isn’t going to work. I said, keep pushing me, Lea! But do you ever listen to anyone besides yourself? I’m sorry that a plan can’t work if it’s not coming from your genius mind, I’m sorry that you can’t trust my idea, but why the hell should I trust you when you are doing the same damn thing I did!” I gesture toward Skuld with open hands. “Do you not realize that every time you tell me I’ve taken a step too far, you take ten steps forward with her? What about me coming first, what about my red light?”

“She’s my friend, you can’t even compare that!” Lea scoffs.

“She can.” Naminé all but whispers from behind me. My shoulder blades snap together, muscles growing impossibly tense at the sound of her voice. “Rueki was not given power so that she could serve an extremist Master anymore than you were given a friend to turn your back on someone you love. You know how that plays out, Lea.” Naminé accuses and his face burns.

“You don’t get to give advice.” I shake my head. “If it weren’t for you breaking Sora in the first place, I would never be in this position.”

“Breaking me?” Sora blinks. Riku goes pale, expecting me to throw his friend over the edge into memories that he should stay far from, I’m certain. 

Naminé flushes, clenching her fists so tight, her knuckles go white.

“I did wrong.” She agrees. “Everyone in this room has wronged each other more times than we should have ever been allowed to. And you especially, Rueki. Even by those of us who meant to do you good. You aren’t what you think you are. You know who you are, you are not the bad guy. You never have been. Lay your hurt out, please. There is still time to change what you’re becoming. Not one of us wants to see you go down this path. No one in this room wants to watch you change into something you aren’t, because you felt alone and empty. I know what that leads to, I remember what that led to for me.”

“Just...let’s talk about everything.” Kairi urges, walking over again to brave setting a hand on my arm. 

I look at the room, at Del and Amaya who have found a home in between Roxas and Xion, the quartet settled in, looking nearly like siblings. At Sora and Riku, who will hear Kairi out as she defends me with every ounce of her heart. At Terra, Aqua and Ven, who can offer me so much knowledge and teach me which routes not to take, to avoid the Master’s clutches. At Naminé, so steadfast, so sincere, braver than she’s ever been as she tries to coax me from the cliff's edge.

At Lea, nestled so wonderfully between Skuld and Isa, his world so complete, his path toward happy ending so crystalline in the way it is etched out for him.

Mine too.

I stride over to him and slide his hand into mine, thinking only of the heat. Lea’s eyes dart up, Skuld’s body goes rigid, Isa looks unsure.

I slip my rings into Lea’s palm and close it tightly.

“You don’t need to be happy with me. You don’t even need to like me. I don’t mind loving you enough to do what’s right, even if it hurts you.” 

I’m out the door before he even has time to open his palm.

I’m weeping in my ship before anyone can chase after me.

I touch ground in Daybreak Town before breath comes evenly again.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the last chapter in the first arc of Rueki's final story. This is fucking wild, guys, there are parts of this story that I've had written since KH3 released and am finally now getting to piece together and I'm happy as hell about it, but low key dragging my feet because I'm not ready for Rueki to go, yet. Thankfully, we've probably got about another 200k words before that happens and at least two more side stories from other character's perspectives coming. 
> 
> Anyhow, as per usual, playlist is at the bottom and now featuring a new letter as well as combinations of letters. X indicates obviously Xigbar, because I've already used 'L' for Lea, so I can't for Luxu. Anything with two letters indicates it works for both characters in the pairing. Enjoy!

XIX.

My ship resides just outside the barrier of this world, a barrier that I easily break down, like I said I would, like I knew I could. Cobblestones blossom beneath my feet, designs seem to ignite in the gold outline of the bricks. The town glows for me, and in the early evening, fireflies swirl around me, as though they sense my presence, as though they are welcoming me home.

If it weren't for the odd synesthesia of my brain dulling the colors to my tear sore eyes, this place would be breathtaking.

Instead looking at the engravings, or following the fireflies, or chasing the air right to the ocean and breathing in the current, I dream of hot hands in mine, of a sharp cheekbone pressed against mine, of vivid green eyes staring in wonder.

‘Hell of a place to watch the sunset’, he’d say, and I’d agree and sit so pretty as he wrapped me around his legs and pressed my back to his chest. No ice cream needed, though he’d complain about the lack nonetheless, and I’d tease him about being a damn twig, and neither of us would even want to move, too blissed out to interrupt the serenity of the night. 

There’s an odd sort of familiarity in thinking you know someone like the back of your hand and realizing that it might not be the case. I guess with Lea being as flickering as the element he wields, I should be used to this. But I’m not, and I’m not sure I ever can be. The Lea I know now wouldn’t be wrapped in just the two of us, it wouldn’t be Roxas and Xion at our sides, the conversation flowing evenly and freely. It would be me, right outside the sweet little jokes that Lea and Isa and Skuld have with each other and me looking in from beyond. 

Maybe the Rueki I used to be would’ve thrown more of a fit, maybe she would’ve solved this all but--

But I’m wondering if this is a mistake. If all of this is. Perhaps I could’ve been more persuasive, perhaps I could’ve begged Lea to side with me. If I were more charming or tactful, maybe the two of us would be walking this path toward the fountain at the center of the town square, hand in hand.

Maybe.

Or maybe no matter how we play our cards, we were born to burn. To go up in flames. 

What I have to do is what I have to do, not just because I love him more than he loves himself, but for me. Because I’m allowed to take care of myself, because someone fucking has to, someone has to put me first. 

My phone is buzzing in my pocket, a roar over the gentlest whisper of breeze. I silence it with shaking hands.

It’s not like I wanted to walk away, it’s not like I ever wanted to go anywhere but toward him. It’s not like he gave me any other option and I can’t be his standby, I can’t sit and watch while he puts me on the backburner when I know better, when I’m capable of being cataclysmic.

Part of me wishes I kept the rings, that I could spin them around my finger right now to displace just a little of this tension but--

But he gave them to me in the first place. He’s very pointedly not happy with me, and if he wants me once I’ve fixed this realm, I’ll need him to prove that to me again. I'll need him to choose me above anyone else one more time. 

My husband, my red light. How were we ever supposed to hold each other on this tightrope? How did we last this long, not burning in his blaze or baring the weight of my storm?

Tears splash into the bricks like rainfall, like I’m truly a hurricane.

A leather clad thumb brushes them away.

I don’t even realize I’ve stumbled into him, but I immediately react, throwing my arms around his waist, pressing my face to his chest. He smells like a powder keg and old books, like ancient magic and intellect and challenges and raw fucking danger. 

His hands find my hair, I’m pretty sure he’s inhaling me, but I’m no better, melding into him with someone else on my mind, sinking into the way he’s warm, but normal warm, not at the edge of combustion. 

This can’t be how he imagined this moment going and I reckon he’s imagined it quite a lot. It’s surely not how I wanted today to go either. It's not what I envisioned last night when I could have held Lea, when I could have pressed my cheek to his chest just one more time, when I--

I have to stop crying.

I emit this hickupy little sob as I pull away from Xigbar and wipe my eyes. This is about so much more than my failed marriage, or my heart being sad. I’d turn it all off if I could, but if I can’t, I do have options. I have an outlet, I have a mission, I have something to work toward and someone who will not tell me that my efforts aren’t enough, still clutching my cheeks.

“You look like hell, kiddo.” He offers, and damn, what is it with me and men that call me out on looking like a gremlin?

“Stop calling me that.” I huff. “I’m not a child.”

“Well, in case you missed it, you’re a lot younger than me.” He gives me this little smirk like a swiss army knife, tiny and dangerous.

“Master Xehanort was a lot younger than you, that’s not a difficult thing to be.” I take in a long, shaky breath that stabilizes by the end. “And I’m not going to be undermined by a damn soul ever again.”

His visible eye goes huge, I might be the only person who has ever rendered Xigbar speechless this many times.

“Hey whoa...you get that...you know that’s not what I was trying for.” He brushes a thumb across my cheek. Involuntarily, I lean into it. 

“I know.” I nod, straightening up. “But you need to know, because no one’s going to hear the end of it from me. I’m never going to feel the way I do right now, ever again. I’d rather die.”

He releases me, which is the right thing to do and sits down at the edge of the fountain, hand splayed out on either side of him.

“Well, that’s why we’re here, isn't it?” He asks, looking around. “Not a damn one of us could’ve gotten our home back if you weren’t you.”

“Which is...” I lift an eyebrow. He grins, utterly in his element.

“Clever as hell, the most talented alchemist in over a century, brave, resourceful, daring. If you’d been afraid to go too far, Daybreak Town wouldn’t be standing. I’d have had no place to gather everyone, there wouldn’t have been remnants of my siblings essence to bring them back. This couldn’t have happened. No one is ever going to talk down to you, because that’s what you made possible in an afternoon. No one here wants to sell you short.” He assures me. My eyes trace the scars on his face.

I could get downright drunk on the way he talks about me. No one has ever held me so high.

I take a step closer, my knees bumping his. Keep me going, my heart pleads, keep this pedestal high, I can’t crash.

“And here I was, thinking I was just a funny little human.” I smirk. His eyes meet mine, and match the way the sun blazes as it streaks down the sky. He reaches out, making a move toward my hips then stops himself, planting his hands on the edge of the fountain just so that he can push himself to his feet. 

His shoulders are broader than Lea’s, he nearly blocks out the burn of the setting sun behind him when he rises.

“A crazy little human.” He corrects, granting me this sideways sort of look. “The Master wants to see you. So do the others.”

“Your siblings?” I raise my eyebrows.

“And their Union Leaders.” He informs me, noticing immediately the face I make. “I take it you know who they all are.” 

“Demyx, Larxene, Marluxia, Vanitas and Luxord. A real welcoming bunch.” Especially to uber panicky me. 

“Emyd, Elrena, Lauriam, Vanitas and Ludor, actually.” He says. I huff dramatically, and he cackles in response. “Hey, you don’t need to tell me. But Elrena is sensitive as hell about the names, and you look like you’ve been dinged up enough for one lifetime.”

But a punch in the face is hardly the worst thing that I could encounter, especially as he leads me through tunnels, up a staircase and into a shining room, decorated in mauves, grays, and other delightfully soft colors that might even look bleak, were it not for the evening sun beaming through floor to ceiling windows. 

I would want to drown in it, even if there weren’t several faces pulled into scowls. 

My teeth drag across my lips. Choose words wisely, I remind myself. This isn’t my meeting with Organization XIII, no one is debating on whether or not to keep me alive, I’m the one casting my first opinion on those who have heard nothing but extraordinary things about me for centuries. Which, hindsight, means I have huge shoes to fill. This is a chance for me to set the tone, for me to establish who I want to be, what I want to be known as.

“Oh, hey Rueki!” Demyx, or rather Emyd looks over leisurely, offering me a lazy wave as he leans back, a little further, into the nook he was tucked into. 

“What joy. Another member of the idiot brigade, rounded up.” Elrena folds her arms to her chest, long legs crossed in an armchair at one edge of the room, right beside Lauriam. 

Be above her, I tell myself. Don’t engage, her insults have exactly as much bite as a preschooler’s would. 

“Now, did Axel dump you before or after you fucked Xigbar?” She bats her eyelashes, aqua eyes flicking up to me.

My skin crackles, white-blue lightning flashing across me. The mark on my hip screeches in agony. 

“Oh, damn, are you still salty that he didn’t want to touch you with a ten foot pole?” I clap a hand over the pain on my hip, hoping the bit of pressure amounts for something.

Eyes fall on me, someone on the other side of the room clears their throat. 

Congrats, Rueki. Your first impression to these superhumans who have waited forever to meet you and probably have you set to a super high standard in their minds, was that you’re a petty little bitch. I guess that’s actually not too far off. Wouldn’t want to give an incorrect example…

“Well hey there, sugar. Guess you don’t have any problem making an entrance.” The Master of Masters cocks his hooded head to the side, his arms folded behind his back.

“And you don’t have any issue making an exit.” I level. The room is very silent for a moment, the masked Foretellers exchange looks, and then suddenly, the Master barks out a laugh. 

“Alright, you got me there.” He waves a hand. “Aced, Invi, Ira, Gula. This is Rueki. The fated alchemist. Rueki, this is Aced, Invi, Ira and Gula.” The Master gestures from the one in the bear mask to the one in the snake mask to the one in the unicorn mask--what the fresh fuck?-- and then finally the one in the leopard mask. 

“And Ava will be here...later?” I ask. There’s another stirring, a discomfort like these masked characters are waiting on their Master to tell them how to feel, to instruct them where to go.

Do they ‘lack emotions’ the way Nobodies did? Is this what constitutes them as inhuman? Is this one of the side effects of being made of corrupted light, of essence?

No, there’s never been a lack of emotion from Xigbar, that’s for sure.

My eyes find where he now stands, beside the Master, hoping for something, anything.

“Ava’s preoccupied.” Xigbar says, brushing me aside as quickly as he let me in. My eyes narrow. I wonder if I can push my thoughts to him when I’m not deeply in need and just really want to tell his ass that he better have a halfway decent explanation for me later, I’m not going to be cast aside or kept in the dark ever again so if he thinks--

My face is getting hot, I’m sure the expression I don leaves a lot to be desired. My phone starts buzzing in my pocket again, so I neutralize my expression and silence it quickly.

“Sorry.” I murmur, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“Don’t worry witch, some of us are smart enough not to have any standards for you.” To be honest, I didn’t even see Vanitas in the room, but as his voice sounds off, I wheel around, catching sight of him in the shadows of the room, draping himself across a pitch black chair in the shadiest part of the room. 

“Ven doesn’t miss you, just so you know.” I say, snidely.

“Yeah, and I doubt your friends are mourning the cheapest member of their group.” Vanitas snarks, which has Elrena giggling, this high, trill.

“Oh, hey, speaking of cheap, I saw this deal at the store the other day, and I picked you up a little something.” I tell him, flashing him two middle fingers. “Gotcha two for five at the fuck off store.” 

Emyd laughs at this. Like hysterically. Like this big, contagious belly laugh that has him wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.

A smile starts to press the corners of my mouth, I notice a set of blue eyes absolutely baring into me, and turn to meet them. To meet the shock of platinum blond hair, the goatee, the uneasy questions written all over his face, and I look away.

No, I’m not ready for this reunion. Not yet. I’m not going to flock to his room and ask him to beat me in card games or a chess match that he might only let me win as penance. We’re going to have to be at close proximity, he’s going to try to explain himself to me. That much is undeniable, but it's hardly what I can take.

“Silence!” The one in the bear mask, bear fuck, Aced, howls, slamming a fist into the table. Emyd straight up chokes, Lauriam clears his throat, Elrena snorts. Something tells me this won’t be the first or last outburst of the evening.

“Thank you, Aced.” Ira, the one in the unicorn mask nods, though I get the feeling he’s just as much of a fuck as bear head is. “We can hardly continue through this chaos. You’re all here because we have a mission to complete.”

“Because the realm needs saving.” Invi, the snake mask says in a gentle, breezy voice that slithers straight under my skin. Her lips press, creating a very thin line, and I immediately get the feeling that she’s just as sweet as she is deadly. Not unlike Lauriam, actually. 

“We’ve assembled you all, because of one very particular shortcoming. We’re made of the same essence that created the worlds in the first place. We can neither create nor destroy that essence.” The one in the leopard mask, Gula informs us, which makes hella sense, Xigbar just instructing me through rather than collapsing Wonderland himself. Actually, this entire grouping makes more sense now. Within this group is pragmatism and strategy unrivaled, even Emyd, who always painted himself unassuming, is far from. I’ve seen him spar. So has Xigbar. This is exactly the kind of skillset that can sneak through a world’s heart without issue. “While we can use its very force in ways you cannot, it will be up to all of you, to ensure that the world is properly cleansed of darkness.” ‘We’re strong but useless’, weird flex but okay.

The way Gula speaks makes it obvious how young he is. I recall Xigbar mentioning that he is the youngest of his siblings, but Gula can’t be far ahead of him, his mention of utilizing the world’s force came across as downright braggy, and his siblings begin to shift beside him, each grappling for control in the most understated way they can manage.

“That isn’t quite the full extent, Gula. As you should all know by now, we need to retain seven worlds of light. The only effective way to seal light into a world is to convince a Princess of Heart to utilize theirs.” Ira remarks. The color drains straight from my face, the edges of the room start to go black, I’m suddenly gripping the edge of the table, trying to count my heartbeats.

“Xigbar…” I start in a warning tone. Realization lights his eye.

“No, Rueki, all the princesses have to do is agree to transfer their own light into the world’s heart. Just like the process of transferring their light from one keeper to another. Totally painless.” He assures me quickly. I nod, a little stiffer than normal as I rub the top of my arms, pointedly not latching to the table like a psychopath anymore. 

“I hate to be a nuisance, Masters, but in our time with Organization XIII, we were unable to uncover the names of all of the new Princesses of Heart, or their locations.” Lauriam intercedes when Elrena opens her mouth, likely to spew something that sounds far less pretty. 

“Oh, we’ve taken care of that.” Xigbar waves a hand, procuring two scrolls from a pocket within his robe. He splays them out on the table, which we all promptly gather around. One is titled ‘Princesses of Heart’, the other is titled ‘Worlds Encrypted With Data’. “See, heavy lifting is done. And there are a lot of worlds encrypted with data. Probably from all the damn synthetic Heartless that ran around. All we need are thirteen, and thanks to Vani, we're damn near half way there.” He’s right. Even with all the worlds Cid was able to uncover for us, he barely revealed the tip of the iceberg. I snort, shaking my head. Eyes find me and I realize how much of a magnifying glass the other Foretellers have me under. The masks shield so much of their faces, but this type of scrutiny can’t be hidden.

“It’s just...the others were scrambling to lock up worlds, but there are a lot more that they haven’t even touched.” I explain. 

“Obviously, the attempts of humans working with fragmented information are futile.” Aced scoffs. Okay, dick. I roll my eyes.

“It’s just...it’s smart.” I concede, eyes flicking to where Xigbar and the Master are, at the head of the table. 

“Well, it’s pleasant that the fabled alchemist sees the merit of our Master’s plan…” Ira begins tentatively. “But it hardly solves the problem of how you’ll each persuade the Princesses to relinquish their light.” 

“Please, the only Princess on this list who has even held a weapon is Rueki’s little friend.” Vanitas waves a hand. “It won’t take much, just a little pressure and they’ll crack.”

“And while that is a potential, we were hoping to build allies in this situation, rather than create enemies in the new realm we’re creating.” Invi nods. 

“Has anyone ever tried just...like bargaining with the princesses?” I lift an eyebrow, leaning forward with palms pressed into the glass table to look over the list.

Kairi- Radiant Garden

No surprise, and funny that she’s associated with Radiant Garden now, when she hasn’t lived there in forever, but whatever. If this means Radiant Garden is safe, I’m not complaining.

Elsa- Arendelle  
Anna- Arendelle  
Rapunzel- Corona  
Moana- Motunui

Great, cool. The chief’s daughter from that tropical world I visited early on with Organization XIII. Which isn’t terrible, considering I’ll have a good lay of the land, but I’ll also have memories.

Lilo- Sector 17, Area 51  
Rhyme- Shibuya

“Rhyme is a friend of a friend. I’m almost certain I could convince her to seal off her world.” I lick my lips.

“I’ve ties in Shibuya as well.” Ludor says, stroking his chin.

“How the hell do you have ties in Shibuya?” I prickle, jaw setting. My phone starts buzzing again and once again, I mute it. “You weren’t supposed to even be able to visit it.” 

“Did the rules of a madman who fancied himself a king ever really apply to any of us, Rueki?” His eyes flick up to mine, which narrow. We hold each others gaze for too long before I look away, tracing a finger over the list. 

“I could get Rhyme to seal off Shibuya, it wouldn’t be hard. We’d keep things peaceful with their world, no chaos, no manipulating princesses. The other side wouldn’t even necessarily know we were there until after I sealed them off.” I speculate. “And as far as the others go, being a Princess of Heart was more of a pain in the ass than a blessing to Kairi, I doubt she's the only one that feels the weight and wouldn't mind shrugging it off.”

“This is hardly how things have been done before, Master. The Union Leaders of the past carried out our plans, as we announced them.” Leopard fuck, Gula protests.

“Didn’t you guys start a war last time?” I ask, noticing a very small pull of a smile grace Lauriam’s lips.

“I hardly think Rueki is revolutionary in suggesting a change in order. I hope the group of you trust us, for we have far more experience in the present day in age and have seen firsthand, the dangers of presenting oneself as the aggressor when it comes to the Princesses of Heart.” Lauriam coos, through thick lashes and a perfectly pleasant demeanor. I know him and I don’t think there’s anyone in the room fooled by his wolf in sheep’s clothing demeanor, but my words spoken through a pretty mouth carry so much more weight. It was my idea, but now that he’s selling it, I want it so much more. 

“I’m not tiptoeing around any princesses.” Vanitas huffs from the back, crossing his arms to his chest.

“I’m not either.” Elrena glares. “I didn’t sign up to be someone else’s puppet. Maybe come find me when you have an actually interesting job.” She waves a hand and makes a move to sway off. 

“What about Darkling creation?” Ira suggests quickly. Elrena rocks back on the heels of her boots. Her angular face tilts a little as her lips fix into a pout.

“I’m not some little rabid dog like him.” She casts an accusatory finger at Vanitas.

“And I’m not working with her. I do this my way, I do it alone.” Vanitas replies, golden eyes narrowed, begging for a challenge. The Foretellers exchange a look, blatantly distressed despite the lack of visible features. 

“Master…” Invi bites her lower lip. The Master, however, does not go rushing to her aid, but rather laughs loudly, clutching his abdomen like Demyx did when I threw shots at Vanitas.

“Wow, you guys sure know how to dish out the arguments, but now that you’re having to manage a couple humans you can’t take it? Where’s the fun in that?” The Master teases, bright and unscathed. Ira mumbles something inaudible to Invi. Aced huffs, Gula tucks a hand under his chin.

“You want us to turn this into a game?” Gula asks

“Why not, it’s only the fate of the realm.” The Master shrugs. There’s something exciting and contagious in the chaos he spews, something that makes me understand Xigbar a little better. He spent his entire life, living the rules of this man’s games. What fun. What dark, mysterious, miserable fun, knowing that while he could never know the fate of the world, the Master already did. What disaster, what monotony. What great effort to put on the shoulders of a boy, inhuman or not. You’ll succeed, but you have no idea how or what path to follow. How long did he contemplate the tremendous weight of his choices before discovering that the Master would do no such thing and so therefore he shouldn’t. I look up at Xigbar, at how he stares so intently at the lists in front of us, and I realize how hungry I am to pick his brain. Despite night after night of stories.

“Then...a competition.” Aced suggests, rubbing his huge, beastly hands together. “To capture lux.”

“Tired.” Elrena yawns, and were it not for the fact that her opening remark rubbed me so raw, I might be a little bit impressed by the way she scoffs at these superhumans.

“What did you say?” Aced barks. Elrena smirks, venom sparkling in her eyes, she opens her mouth, likely to say something nasty when Lauriam raises an arm in front of her, holding her back. Her jaw straight up drops.

“I think what Elrena meant to convey was that this very same endeavor landed us very little success even in simpler times.” Lauriam says in a voice like silk, despite Elrena crossing her arms to her chest and letting out a loud ‘hmph’.

“I think that’s the definition of insanity, right?” Emyd rubs the back of his neck. “Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

“When did the resident idiot grow a brain?” Elrena snarls, like an angry little thing, kept in a cage too long. 

“Hey, I was agreeing with you.” He pouts, face scrunching up. 

“And you’re smarter than that.” The Master reminds Aced. “You all are. Listen, what we did last time was my game, my plan. This is on you this time. We need light, but we also need to do something about the darkness. Collecting Lux up isn’t gonna help us the way it did before, now that we’re sure we can’t banish darkness, we need fresh ideas. That’s why we’re here, all of us.”

“Are you implying that there wasn’t a previous plan in place to streamline this process?” Ludor’s eyebrows raise.

“The plan involved at least a little bit of cooperation between all of you.” Xigbar’s mouth presses into a line.

“Simpler times.” The Master agrees. 

“Well, kiddo, you good on Princess duty?” Xigbar asks me. I smirk.

“Definitely.” Because surrounding myself with women who emit the most delicious light known to the realm is a good time no one needs to threaten me with. 

“And Vanitas, your success rate with collapsing worlds is nothing to be ashamed of.” Gula nods. Vanitas downright scoffs.

“Your praise is overwhelming.” He rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, oh great one, I know the list, and I’ll consume all of the ones that Rueki’s little heroes haven’t already ruined for me.” 

“Does it ever make you cry that you’re literally good at one thing?” Elrena smirks at him.

“It’s one more thing than you.” Vanitas tells her. Her face goes downright red. 

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, you smarmy little prick!” She snaps, and while Elrena and I certainly aren’t friends, she’s never--

Scratch that, she’s definitely kicked me while I’m down. Her and Vanitas can rot in the trash bag hell all three of us probably belong in. I’m staying ten feet away from this dick measuring contest at all times. 

“Silence!” Aced barks.

“This is hardly the time for mindless squabbles. We have far bigger issues to attend to and we’re on the same side.” Invi knits her long, slim fingers together, somehow finding a way to look disappointed, in just the set of her jaw and lips. 

“Tell that to him.” Elrena tosses her short hair.

“Tell that to a child, Elrena?” Lauriam lifts an eyebrow. The color of course drains out of her face. Her eyes flash around the room and, as though she hopes no one saw the momentary display of weakness, she crosses her arms to her chest. 

“Can someone please just tell me what I’m supposed to do? I can think of a lot better ways to spend the evening than these little meetings.” She groans.

“Now, that’s the fun part.” The Master says. 

“Fun is not how I would describe it” Ira contemplates. “But the most pressing matter would be keeping this new team of Keybearers, these Twilight Defenders, at bay. They’ve already been too successful, some worlds on our lists of potentials have already been permanently sealed.” 

“So then, perhaps that should be the goal of our remaining four.” Invi suggest.

“Yes.” Aced agrees, eyes finding Emyd. “And if we are able to thwart them and collect light in one go, we’ll be all the more effective.”

“Then that settles it.” The Master claps his hands together. “Put some road blocks up. Keep the Twilight Squad from sealing off any other worlds, gather light. Success will be rewarded.”

“With what?” Ludor inquires, eyes narrowed and inquisitive. 

“Well, you all have something you want. Nothing’s really off limits.” The Master replies, and I suppose not. For him. 

Elrena’s shoulders go hypertight. Lauriam’s eyebrows incline, Emyd beams, Ludor is the only one who looks skeptical and not so easily tantalized. Even I’m a little intrigued. 

But this will be my everything I’ve ever wanted. The hungriest I’ve ever been is now, and for the first time I have the ability to change. Gingerly, my fingers brush the skin of my neck. The leash is gone, I’m so very free, it’s like my legs could catapult me into anything. 

Dear Twilight, I’m going to keep Lea alive. I’m going to keep every last one of them alive. Despite all of their damned efforts to do otherwise. I am going to change the course of my life. No more mad men, no more power hungry, golden eyed demons, looking to tear my world limb from limb. This world is protected, safe from my fears, safe from every last nightmare I’ve ever had. I’ve never tasted fresher air, never seen clearer.

My palms are so hot, I don’t even realize that they’re burning until I see the singed edges of my shirt. My heart catches in my throat, I clap my hands to each other, effectively snuffing out the flame. 

“Are you literally incapable of self control?” Elrena huffs.

“Obviously. You’ve met me more than once.” I reply breezily, knowing it vexes her that much more when I don’t react. 

“World’s full of ancient magic, I’m sure you’ll be doing it soon enough, Elrena.” Xigbar springs so sweetly to my defense, but I do notice the uneasy look on his face as he looks at my hands. 

“Maybe. Or maybe your alchemist is a shitty mage.” She purses her lips. “Are we done, is this done?”

“Patience, Elrena.” Lauriam orders. “When the Master is no longer in need of our presence, I’m sure he’ll inform us.” But Elrena doesn’t pout or cave or even throw a temper tantrum. She looks at Lauriam as though he’s a traitor, as though even she doesn’t trust a word coming out of his mouth. She looks like she wants to be nowhere near him and if he tries to placate her with another hand on her shoulder, she is going to cut it off.

“Screw that, I’m done with this. Tomorrow, I’ll go piss off some Key Kids. Oh joy.” She rolls her eyes, tearing herself away from the group, making another move for the door.

“No, tomorrow you will train.” Aced orders. Elrena laughs, high and haughty.

“Right, because that’s going to get us anywhere. Some of us aren’t centuries out of practice.” She snaps at him.

“This isn’t solely for you, Elrena. We want each of you to train in a strategy based env. There will be tasks you must work together on in the future, we need to be quite aware of your strengths and ability for cooperation.” Invi urges. 

“You know…” Elrena drawls, popping her knuckles. “Believe it or not, you’re not the one pulling my strings.”

“She isn’t, I am.” Ira says and at this, Elrena snaps rigid, as though the metaphorical strings are actually quite real. “Training, tomorrow morning. You will be there.” But there’s something about Ira. He holds himself in quite a regal manner, but when he gives orders, I don’t buy them. Everything sounds cheap, like an imitation, like he’s just copying the words as they came out of someone else’s mouth. 

“Whatever.” Elrena grumbles, and straight up stalks out of the room. 

“Well, they do say to quit while you’re ahead.” The Master huffs, leaning onto the table.

“Who says this?” Gula’s mouth folds into a pout. This kid might actually be an idiot. This superhuman, made of the world’s essence, might be one of the dumbest people around. 

“The Union Leaders can go. I’ve got a couple things I’d like to go over with the rest of you though.” The Master says.

“Of course, Master.” Ira nods. 

“You mind letting me sneak off to show our resident alchemist off to her room?” Xigbar lifts an eyebrow. The Master chuckles, and I can hear the smile, sunny and proud in his voice. How nice, he must think this feels, for me to be delivered finally, to his would be child. 

“I’d be happy to escort Rueki.” Ludor pipes up, and to my surprise, Xigbar snorts, rolling his eye. 

“Have at it Luxu.” The Master claps Xigbar on the shoulder, and I just shrug at Ludor, before following Xigbar out the door.

Ludor knows I’ll forgive him. I know I’ll forgive him. I know I’m not immune to who he is and in light of everything, I’m even more interested in what’s going on in his head, which is quite a dangerous card he now has to play. But like hell am I going to make any of this easy, when I swore to my own heart that I was done with Luxord, in that incarnation or any others. If I’ve got anything left to cling to anymore, it’s petty bullshit.

Especially with less to focus on, especially with the prospect of sleep being so close.

Fuck, who am I even kidding? I won’t get a wink, no matter how I distract my brain. 

“Well, you lucked out in the sweetest of ways, didn’t you, kiddo?” He chuckles and I look up, momentarily distracted. “I didn’t realize you had a little smooth talking in you.”

“Hardly.” I roll my eyes. 

“You’re taking it easy with some princesses.” He reminds me. A tiny smile graces my face. 

“Well, I sure wasn’t letting Vanitas or Elrena within a ten mile radius of them.” I reply, but something strikes me. “You’re not joining me?” I ask. He shrugs and rounds a corner.

“Well, here you are.” He gestures to a door and drops a key into my hand.

“Why won’t you be coming with me on any of these missions?” I cross my arms to my chest, leaning against the edge of my door frame with Xigbar just on the other side of it. He lifts an eyebrow, smirk nestling into the corners of his lips.

“You gonna miss me, kiddo?” He asks.

“You’re going to need to scrap that nickname.” I roll my eyes.

“You prefer sweetheart then?” He teases. I don’t know if he notices how grim my expression becomes. Probably, though. “Look, you’re not the only one with big plans.”

“Last I checked, you weren’t given any missions.” I remind him.

“Yeah, last you checked. Pretty big assumption you’re making when we’ve been making plans for a lot longer than you’ve been alive.” He says, with the breezy wave of his hand. I press my lips into the most severe pout I can manage, he just taps me on the nose.

“This doesn’t work if we’re not honest with each other.” I tell him. He blinks, looking at me with one huge gold eye, curious, intrigued. “Brutally, miserably honest.” 

“What doesn’t work?” He tilts his head just so. My phone buzzes in my pocket again, and suddenly my face goes bright red as I quickly silence it, pulled out of the banter of the moment. 

“This partnership. I’m not going to take sides with anyone who isn’t open with me. I know myself well enough to know that it doesn’t work a second time.” Or with anyone other than Lea. And that was only because I was so distracted by the way my name sounded on his lips that I would’ve forgiven everything. That I did forgive anything. 

And he just watched me walk out the door. 

Xigbar opens his mouth, empty noise forming on his tongue, but I shake my head and open up the door.

“You can save them. I’m sure your words are fascinating. But you’ve got a meeting, and I need to try to maybe get some sleep tonight.” I remind him.

“Tomorrow then.” He says, shoveling a hand into his pocket. “After the training, I’ll give you a tour of the town and catch you up on everything.”

“Maybe.” I reply and disappear into the room.

For a moment, I hear him lingering, the leather of his gloves brushing the door. Then he’s gone, and I’m yanking my phone out of my pocket.

Twelve missed calls. Five voicemails.

Thirty four unread text messages.

Fuck me.

It’s a slew of exactly what I expected.

Riku tells me to come home, that he remembers how hard Ansem pulled and how he wishes that someone was unoccupied enough to pull him back and he wants to be that for me.

I delete all four of the messages he sent me. 

‘He’s crying again, you should come home.’ Isa’s text reads, but that deletes just as easily as Riku’s messages.

We’re here for you, we want to support you, Xion informs me in a six text rant, complete with paragraphs and a crying emoji at the end.

Close, no cigar, I delete her slew of messages.

Ven, I discover, is the worst texter, at ten messages, each stunted sentence more punctured with emotion than the last. I’m not a sum of my worst choices, everyone in the house still loves me, we can work this out, they want to hear me out. 

Every single word is too little too late.

Terra assures me that this can be solved, that everyone knows this isn’t who I am.

Delete.

Aqua is disappointed, she doesn’t even choose the sympathetic route, but rather tells me this might be what feels good, but it isn’t what’s right. 

Fuck her, I think, fuck her and her fair weather friendship, as I delete her messages.

Amaya is at least conscie, though it pains me to read everything she has to say.

‘I don’t disagree with you, Rueki. I want my daughter to grow up in a world better than this, but this is hardly the way and by hurting the people you love, our hands are tied. How can we heal you, how can we love you when you’re so far away and you keep shoving us further, this is why you need to talk to us, to be honest with us. I can’t stand to see you do this to yourself. Please, please, please just come home.’

Delete.

Del is not so very well put together, sending me five long ass texts, each more confusing than the last, as though his thumbs bumped one too many times up against each other.

‘You’re the one who inspired me to start this journey, don’t take off on me the second I do, you’re one of my oldest friend’s, I can’t do this without you.’

‘You have no idea what this is doing to Lea, he misses you so much, can you just come home?’

‘I don’t know where you are, but we will come find you, you can’t just disappear.’

‘Rueki, for fucking real.’

‘Could you please just stop? You win. Come home.’

Delete.

Kairi sends me five messages, each one more frantic and tainted with false anger than the rest. You can fool the others, princess, I want to tell her, but you can’t fool me. We both know she doesn’t have the heart for that toxicity. What does seem authentic, is her final, pleading message.

‘Please don’t leave me here without you. You’re my best friend, we can’t do this apart. Please don’t make me face this all without you, Rueki. I love you. This can still all be okay.’

My heart feels like someone is squeezing it, fist tightening until it pops. I place a hand on my stomach, trying to keep down the contents.

I love her too, but none of it is enough, and after she died, I fear it never can be again.

I delete the messages, in a new day, in a new world, maybe what we were to each other can count for something. But not when I feel like this, not when the ache from wars past sits so heavy on me, still. Not with a trace of darkness left behind.

A single message from Namine, lights the screen.

‘No matter what you think, you are a hero. No matter what the loneliness has convinced you, you are still believed in.Your home will always be right here waiting.’

Cryptic nonsense is always easy for me to back away from, delete. 

With a steadying breath, I unlock my voicemail and put my phone to my ear.

“Listen, fuck Lea, wherever you are, let me know, I’m coming after--go to hell, Riku, I’m not just going to let her leave! What would you have done if Sora didn’t come drag your ass away from Ansem, you know her, you know she’s only doing this because she’s hurt. Please, Rueki, just call me back, please.” Kairi’s voice shakes with tears. She takes another timid breath and hangs up the phone.

“...” There’s a long pause at the next voicemail, but I recognize the huge heaving of a sigh. Lea. “I don’t know what you want me to say to you. If you think running away and throwing a tantrum because you’re not getting enough attention in the middle of a war is going to get you your way you’re… You’re immature as hell, Rueki. The world is ending, we have an actual chance to stop it and you choose now to find someone else to crawl after, and choose sides? You’re an ass. You’ve thrown this whole house into disarray, Kairi won’t stop crying, Roxas spent the last hour screaming at me, he threw his damn phone at me and broke it, Sora’s blaming himself, and you couldn’t even be bothered to accept that you’re in the wrong. Fuck you. Fuck you. You’re so selfish. I could’ve died, Skuld and Isa could’ve died because you wanted to go dip your toes somewhere else? Thank you so damn much, sweetheart, for giving me the rings back. The person I married would never--”

I don’t need to hear the end of that message to start crying, hand clamped over my mouth, tears hot as they streak down my face and pour from my sore eyes. The person he married would never? Well what about the person I married? I wanna scream as my hand leaves my mouth and slams a fist into the door frame. What about the man who swore he would put me first, what about us, what about the things we burned down to keep each other warm? When did the way we loved each other become collateral damage and why am I the only one grieving it? A hiccupy noise comes from my parted lips, so I bite them, keeping the stupid, pathetic sounds in as I move onto the next message.

“Look that wasn’t...I didn’t mean to take things that far. But you’re being fucking ridiculous, you were right at the frontline, you were always pushing me to be better, to do the right thing and now that I’m actually trying, even when it’s damn hard, you treat me like a fucking leper? You used to love me so much deeper than that, I actually used to mean something to you, do you know what it feels like to finally feel good about everything in your life and watch the person you love most throw things to the fire because--No. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

Can’t do this can’t bend, can’t shift even a little. He’s so fucking linear and can’t see the complexity, the necessity of loving someone and I have spent the past three years teaching, training, begging him to learn to love me properly. He ran toward me, lept and bounded, and flew right past me, toward Isa. Toward Skuld. The mark on my hip could split my body completely in two. My chest feels hollow, something is pounding within me--or maybe into me--and I’m gutted, scraped clean and fed to the wolves.

“I know this is dumb, but...I think this whole fight is dumb. I don’t know when I lost you, but fuck, Rueki, I’m scared it was so long ago. I can’t...I don’t like how home feels without you. I don’t like where this has gotten. Can you just call me back? There’s gotta be something we can do. You’re my favorite person in the entire world, sweetheart. I hate feeling like I’m in this without you, you’ve been my partner since the day you came back into my life. Please don’t let it end like this, please don’t walk away from something that we can get through.”

But we can’t. And he can say he didn’t try, he can own up to that if he wants but I don’t see him doing that and I don’t have those same shortcomings. I love him, I gave everything, did everything, begged, pleaded, bargained, promised, snuffed out my pride on hands and knees. Not once did he budge, not once could he begin to understand why this is important, why this needs to happen, why something could possibly matter to me and not him.

“Please, sweetheart. Rueks. Rueki. Please.” Lea’s voice is choked with tears. This miserable, stifling sob catches in my throat. Omigod, choke it down, I will myself, but I can’t and have to jam my fist in my mouth to silence myself. “I don’t… I don’t even care anymore. I don’t care what it takes just please come home to me. I love you so much. Please.”

I delete each voicemail and turn off my phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Calling- Takeharu Ishimoto (R)  
2\. Come Undone - My Darkest Days (X)  
3\. Mariners Apartment Complex- Lana Del Rey (RL)  
4\. Happy- The Indiana Drones (R)  
5\. Growing Pains- Alessia Cara (R)  
6\. A Murder Of One- Counting Crows (X)  
7\. Stab My Back- The All-America Rejects (L)  
8\. Liability- Lorde (R)  
9\. Fireflies- Ron Pope (L)  
10\. Garden- Halsey (X)  
11\. Haunted- Taylor Swift (RL)  
12\. Everybody Wants To Rule The World- Tears For Fears


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo friends remember how I was like 'I'm gonna need a break every ten chapters?' Yeah not happening anymore. Thanks to quarantine I've had some damn good time to write, I'm about halfway through chapter 27 now and have currie scenes written too so that's pretty dope. I would love to, but the end of May, be able to start posting two chapters a week again, so just know that's the goal and if you're still reading this, I still love you and am trying to do nice things! Enjoy!

XX.

Every godforsaken fucking bone in my body hurts. My brain throbs, stinging with the soreness of a night poorly slept, chasing my own insecurities into an endless hole. This isn’t a void I claw my way out of, not when curling up at the bottom of this pit is just so much more comfortable.

The thrumming, throbbing of the clocktower, ticking time that I can’t stop from flowing, mocks me. It’s slipping through my fingers, like a tornado of water, circling the drain before disappearing. It’s dragging so painfully, like a bruise forming, scar tissue knotting at a pulse point.

My bed is ice cold.

I’m not sure when I doze off, but I do, blinding my own brain with nightmares of lighting spiraling around me, ashes raining from the sky, and a shock of red just out of reach.

I don’t wake up screaming, but my face is wet when I return to consciousness. How many more nights, I wonder? How do I speed up the healing? How do I walk away from the heaviness I feel now and the scorching in my hip, and when do I become this delightfully effective machine, crusading through worlds, saving the man I love most from himself? I’m not sure, I doubt there’s an answer beyond the cliche of time healing all wounds, but the second my thoughts begin to stray toward Lea, I feel as though someone is pushing my shoulders back down into the bed, shoving me deep into the plush of the mattress.

Drown in it.

I pull the patchwork quilt up to my cheeks, running my fingertips across the seams. What is early? Has training already begun? I find I don’t particularly care and and feel even less, the further I slide the blankets up my body. 

A knock raps at my door.

Just play dead, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just close my eyes and imagine tiny flames licking the edges of my skin. Or maybe I’ll--

Maybe I’ll imagine myself at the bottom of the ocean, slipping away before the last transmutation circle activated in Scala ad Caelum. Maybe I can just slip into the consequences of my actions and am the only one who gets bit. 

“You decent in there, sugar?” The Master’s voice sounds off from beyond the door. I make a noncommittal noise, which apparently he hears, because he opens up the door, an old wooden box tucked under one of his arms. I don’t bother to raise myself up, instead I focus on the controlled scraping of my teeth across my lips. “Tough adjusting to a new bed?” 

“You could say that.” I reply in a flat voice, noticing how heavy my tongue feels on my own mouth. “What’s in the box?” I ask. He chuckles, like we’re old friends recanting an inside joke and that our brief interactions haven't been unsatisfying as fuck.

“You wouldn’t believe how sick I am of that question.” 

“Cool.” I say, pulling the quilt a little closer to my form. “Look, if you’re here to lecture me about missing training or something, you should probably know, I’m really shit at the whole scheduled team building stuff. I think everyone in this castle needs time to adjust to each other before we actually try to cooperate. There’s history.” Like murder, for starters.

“I know. I don’t disagree.” He says, setting the box at the furthest corner of the bed from me, before taking a seat right beside it. I lift an eyebrow, stirring just enough to look at him. “I’m preparing the others though, you see. Ira, Aced, Invi, Gula, they’re as mighty and extraordinary as Ava and Luxu, but they’ve done nothing with it, partially out of fear. Partially because I didn’t give them enough range. I won’t pretend I didn’t make mistakes the first time I went around, but I corrected them. I trust that they’ll all learn to do the same. I mean…” He chuckles, this soft, noise like we’re sharing a secret. “I created them in my image. And as for training, don’t worry, it hasn’t even started yet. Daybreak in our world starts a little earlier than anywhere else. We have the shortest nights in the realm.”

“Oh.” I just say. He weighs the box in his hands, momentarily and extends it to me. 

“You familiar with these?” He asks me as I grunt and force myself up, just enough to be polite, leaning back against the pillows so that I can take the box into my hands.

“Sure.” I say. “Seven locks, the box is elemental, right?” Impulsively, I conjure spells to my fingertips, delighting in the rush that this world’s latent magic offers me. “Fire, water, aero, freeze, thunder, reflect, magnet.” Seven supercharged offensive spells cast to locks of coordinating color pop it right open, and in my hands, a chess set is revealed. I’m very much so underwhelmed. “You woke me up for a morning chess match?”

“And to see a little display of magic.” The Master shrugs. “Your surge yesterday was unique. Doesn’t happen often.”

“It’s usually just with lightning.” I explain, splaying the board out across an unruffled side of the bed. “Well, I guess set up the board.” I shrug.

“No fear?” He cocks his head to the side. I snort.

“Why would I be afraid of playing a game with you?” I ask.

“Hmm, I wonder why. Ancient being, unique foresight, you’ve gotta have questions? Concerns? Comments?” He probes. I smirk a little, pushing myself up further, sitting with my legs folded.

“Sure. But you’re hardly the most intimidating person I’ve ever played.” I smirk before wiping it away. Luxord or Ludor or whatever has not earned my forgiveness yet, there’s no need to reminisce on something that is unsatisfying in hindsight. He sets up the board as I start combing my scattered hair out with my fingers. “Why the elemental box?”

“Just a teaser.” He waves a hand. “An idea for a later date. I’ve got a different challenge for you this morning.”

“Beyond playing a game?” I inquire as he finishes with the board.

“Games aren’t fun if they’re one dimensional, don’t you agree?” He asks, and I can’t help the smirk that quirks at the edges of my lips. Touche, Douche Lord. “During this game, I’m going to give you clues to what my real name is. I won’t tell you when it’s a clue, but if you can guess it correctly the first time, I’ll answer one question, anything you want. I know Luxu’s given you the royal treatment, but there are things that even he doesn’t know, things he hasn’t seen play out like I have. You’re allowed to ask me three questions that could pertain to my name.”

“And what happens if I guess wrong?” I ask, leaning forward, hand tucked beneath my chin as he makes his first move.

“Sounds like you better get used to double duty.” The Master chuckles. “Princess protection by day, Twilight thwarting by night. Not a fun way to spend time.”

I make a face, feeling my gut twist. Fat fucking chance. I’m not twisting myself into a hard place that could get me sucked into time spent with Lea or Kairi or Roxas or Del or anyone that might try to yank my leash and pin me into place. I could visualize any of their faces now and want to crumble, want to crawl home. I could. But I can’t feel how I felt yesterday, ever again. If I stumble back now, the world still on the edge of everything and nothing, and my emptiness will remain.

“Fine.” I reply, with narrowed eyes as I move my piece. “So, you’re going to give me clues and I’m not going to know it. What type of morning conversation did you have planned?” I ask, setting my piece.

“Well, I was going to ask how you enjoyed your stay, but it looks like not.” He chuckles softly, moving his piece immediately after, as though he anticipated my move. Which he very well could’ve. Bastard. “You know, this room was crafted uniquely for you, everyone’s room was. They’re enchanted, changing to look the way you want.”

And of course he’s right, I notice, as my eyes quickly flick up, willing myself not to be distracted by what I’m certain my heart conjured up. My eyes switch back to the board, and I try not to think of the shades of red, orange and yellow that decorated the room like an autumn leaf, or the eyeliner and container filled with a face mask on my nightstand. The pink plaid hair brush, the paopu fruit tassels dangling from the ceiling fan.

“My brain’s a dick.” This room could constitute as a torture chamber. 

“Luxu did say you have a problem accepting the things you want. A conflicted little hero.” He presses as I finally make my move. Again, he’s instantaneous with his play, so I decide to be too, impulsively moving a piece. His hood tilts up, gaze presumably meeting mine, from the other side of the board and he cocks his head to the side, I press my lips into a pout. 

“I’m absolutely zero people’s hero.” I correct him. “And Luxu has me at a hell of a disadvantage, he’s caught me up on a lot, but he knows a lot more about me than I do about him. He’s learned me all of my life and I haven’t had the same luxury.”

“A lot to handle, huh?” He asks. I shrug. “It’s not easy for him either. It’s hard to tell a child about...well, you’re a challenge. You’re not meant to be easy, he doesn’t grow without you. So he’s still learning that love doesn’t always get to come easy.”

“I’m not…” My face twists up as he makes a move. “I have someone.”

“Yeah.” He nods. “The mark’s what, on your hip?” He asks. My eyes go huge. There’s no way Xigbar or any one of the would be Union Leaders could’ve known that. 

“How could you have…” I choke. “What does that mean? Xigbar’s mentioned that mark so many times, but when I asked him, he said he wasn’t opening up that can of worms.”

“Well, that’s not really a question about my name.” He chuckles, my face goes quite red. 

“Well, you never answered my question about the box being elemental.” I snap. He seems to contemplate this, rubbing the back of his head as I make a more emotional than logically driven move. Fuck, if I don’t stop throwing a tantrum, I’m not going to win this. He’s got a strategy somewhere, I just need to figure out what his is and alter mine accordingly. He’s a step ahead of me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to keep pace with him.

“Well, if I have a secret, it shouldn’t be easy to get to. If I keep it locked away in a puzzle box like that, it’s harder to dissect.” He says, making another move.

“Yeah, until they pick up a basic alchemy book. That’s such an old technique, locking something away in a puzzle box and having to transmute it to open. The magic’s a cool twist, but it’s hardly something anyone’s going to get stumped by.” I scoff.

“Unless magic and alchemy aren’t the sequential answer and I’m the only one who knows what the answer actually is.” The Master says.

“You know, I hate to tell you this, but you’re an ancient being. You’re the thing of myths, no one in this time outside of the need to know, knows who you are. I think your secrets are hidden away with the rest of your past.” I inform him, and at this, he chuckles.

“I promise you, if I have a secret, it’s not something anyone in the realm is going to forget.” What a cocky fuck. “People chase down legends long after they cease to exist.” And I reiterate, cocky fuck. 

“So you hid away some legend inside of a box, and it takes a special type of something to get into it.” I repeat. He laughs softly, noise brushing the air like feathers on the wind. I finally huff and make my move, looking at the board with a knitted brow. When did he get so far ahead? How is this fair? If he has some sort of foresight --which, I mean he hasn’t actually confirmed but I’m not stupid either-- what the hell kind of challenge is this? How could this even be fun for him?

Unless the chess match isn’t a challenge, but a distraction for the real game he’s playing. My tongue pokes out, brushing across my upper lip. He makes a move, so do I.

“You got it. Luxu already had to watch over my Keyblade. The least I could do was make it so that if he lost track of the box, it wouldn’t be detrimental. No matter who found it, no one could know how to get into it. Not that it mattered in the end.” He explains.

“Oooh, best laid plans go foiled?” I ask, biting back a tiny smile, just because it feels like comeuppance. “”Well what was in the box?”

“A good question. Doesn’t have anything to do with my name though, if that’s what you wanna ask, you’ll have to guess that, remember?” He asks, making another move. What the fuck? So the key to opening the box constituted but not the contents within?

Think, I urge myself, what could I possibly know about some box I’ve never seen? Not a damn thing, unfortunately. I know about the box he laid out in front of me, I know that he made some parallels to it, but how could I possibly know which things about this box match the other box? And how am I supposed to know what’s relevant about him based on the locking system of the box?

“Will you tell me how many clues you’ve already given me?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow. I take one of his pieces, but he quickly takes one of mine in return. 

“Nope.” I hear the sound of his lips popping from inside his hood as I make a move, trying to back my queen away from him. He takes a rook and I curse under my breath, sicking a pawn his way in frustration. 

“Well, I’ve only asked you one question.” I say as he takes another of my pieces. “What’s the first letter of your name, can I ask that?” I lift an eyebrow. He laughs wildly, as though this is such a weak question it’s amusing. I admit, it might not be my best strategy, but it’s something, and it’s not going to hurt to know.

“Sure, if that’s what you wanna go with.” He says, still laughing as I make another move and he follows up by taking another piece. “Starts with an ‘s’.” He says and instantly my mind is flooded, memories wash over me, Roxas falling off the clock tower, Sora and Kairi spilling into his head, guessing at names and--

The Master made a lot of mistakes along the way according to Xigbar, but I know someone else who did the very same thing, trying to bring a girl he loved back to life. That’s a parallel I’m not quite comfortable with but one I know is purely coincidental. Actually, it wouldn’t even surprise me if he was baiting me to throw me off. He can’t be the fruits of Sora’s failed attempts, a fragment left behind when my friend rewrote the past, the Master isn’t human. He was made of the very first light clashing with the very first darkness, the original piece of corrupted, glitching light the--

The original.

He takes my queen and my breath simultaneously.

“There’s a face.” He teases. 

“You’re pride, aren’t you?” I ask. The Latin name for it, Rueki, fuck. “Superbia?” 

He’s silent for a very long time. I make a move and he does too.

“Checkmate.” He murmurs. My eyes go huge as I look around the board, trying to figure out when he cornered me so severely. Not that I was so devoted to winning this when I realized what his challenge really was but--

But I still hate losing. 

I draw my knee to my chest, tucking it tight to me. He starts packing pieces into the box again and folds up the board.

I hate the indecision.

“Well?” I lift an eyebrow. He pushes himself off of the edge of my bed and pats the top of my head like I’m a very small dog. The anticipation tickles my skin. I should've known to think this interaction would be any more satisfying than him douching it up in Shibuya.

“Luxu was right. You operate like a champ when you’re fully stimulated.” The Master says. “One question, any one of your choosing.”

My face brightens, brightens substantially. 

“I’m not calling you that by the way. That’s an even douchier name than calling yourself the Master of Masters.” I grin and he chuckles.

“Oh, I’d expect nothing less from you. Besides, I wouldn’t want the other kids getting jealous. Anyhow, your question?” He asks.

I’ve forgotten the shades of warmth in the room, forgotten the hints of pink, forgotten the turned off phone in my nightstand drawer. So this is what rewarded victory feels like, I’d nearly forgotten. 

“I’ll keep it on deck for the time being, if you don’t mind.” I smirk, setting my chin on my knee. 

“On deck?” He asks, tucking the box beneath his arm.

“There’s a lot going on now.” I confess. “I don’t really think I can take in much more.” And I can’t decipher wha, of the many questions I have, takes precedence. They’re all equally tempting now when my hands have been empty and my ears have been guarded for so long. 

He chuckles softly.

“You’re a terrible liar.” He accuses. I bark out a laugh.

“Well, when I’m done milking everyone else in the castle for information, I’ll hit you up.” I cackle. 

“You’re a clever kid.” He pats my head once more and starts out the door. “Oh, and you’ll wanna be dressed in about fifteen seconds. Aced’s a real bear when you make him wait.” 

He disappears out of my room and I take my sweet ass time changing into a sports bra and shorts, just to prove a point.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're on lockdown in my state, and I feel like a lot of other people have this problem. I was just writing smut as a way to fill time and entertain those who, like me, refresh their AO3 browser like fifty times a day. And all of a sudden, I realized I went from scrambling to finish chapters on the day I knew I'd need to post them, to having nearly ten chapters ahead, completed. 
> 
> So, I feel like on the short term, I want to post in this twice a week. Right now, I'm only on confirmed lockdown until May 15th, I have no idea when I'll be back to work, my day job is hair, so who knows when they'll decide my job is safe to do while social distancing, but like, the world's kind of wild right now. I miss more interaction with you guys, I know I'm bored and wish my fics would update more, so you guys let me know if there's a day you like for updates, to pair with Sundays, or if it doesn't matter and I should just pop in with some surprise updates.
> 
> Anyhow, if you can guess the three worlds that Rueki goes to in this chapter, ten points to you, enjoy, friends.

XXI.

The training area is equally as grandiose as every other part of Daybreak Town. I tread into a grassy field, this one decorated in wildflowers, surrounded by a pillared overhang, casting just the most delicious shade down into the arena. 

“You couldn’t have bothered to be punctual?” Aced barks, upon seeing me, like being loud will somehow win him this argument. I just lift a brow, and suppose he’s not the only one slightly displeased with me, since I am the last one here. Emyd I get out of fear he wouldn’t want to be late and Ludor isn’t one for useless defiance. But Vanitas? Elrena and Lauriam, they’re all here before me and all properly sulking? Then there was Elrena’s little display yesterday and the way Ira yanked her like she was on a leash. I’m not sure what the hell that was, but I get the distinct feeling that I might be the only one here not being compelled in some way.

“No.” I say curtly, leaving no room for argument, though Aced does growl, more reminiscent of a bear than ever. Invi’s thin lips curl over her teeth, disgust apparent though she says nothing and I just think cool, another woman to hate me. This is great, this is really great. My choice of allies here consists of someone who will admit to being okay with selling me out if it saves his skin, someone who has chosen anything over my friendship a thousand times over, the fucking sociopath in charge, and--

I look at Xigbar. Who has said the prettiest words to me and then some, despite being a known bastard. How much of it was cheap persuasion, how much did I fall for and how little do I care if he keeps selling my fairy tales? Whatever happens today, the prospect of alone time with him isn’t altogether unappealing, despite the way Lea’s voicemail rings in my ear. No, I don’t need to be interested in anything romantic pertaining to him to appreciate the way he knows how to smooth over my emptiness, patching the cracks in all that I am. Not when this is what he was made to be for me, when this is something he’s more than comfortable offering me.

It’s a possible tour of the world, I remind myself. I owe him nothing for this, he expects nothing of me for this and if we can get lost in banter, then good for both of us. I’m not a user any more than I am actually cheap.

“I suppose what Aced would like to say is that there is a certain level of expectations we all had for the Alchemist.” Ira says, and, defensively, I cross my arms to my chest.

“I don’t know what anyone told you, but I’m painfully human.” I mutter.

“Apparently.” Gula says, making the muscles in my arms go tense. There’s a nasty little smirk on Vanitas’ face and Elrena doesn’t even try to hide her laugh. 

“Ahh, shit, I forgot, El. A little kid’s humor’s about all you can comprehend, right?” I offer her the pettiest look I can manage, snatch a hair tie off my wrist and start twisting my hair into a sloppy bun. “Any takers on explaining training?”

“In a rush all of a sudden, kiddo?” Xigbar cackles. “You act like you’ve got better places to be.”

“I might after this.” I smirk back. There’s a sort of buzzing between us, even in the distance apart, and I kind of don’t mind the conspiratorial look on his face. Maybe this is the person I’m supposed to take on the world with, maybe loving Lea is one thing, but having a partner in crime is a totally different one. 

In fact, I notice how much less cozy Elrena looks from hers, standing a massive amount apart from Lauriam, like they’ve had some sort of falling out. Maybe it’s better, the separation of business and pleasure. 

“Well then, you heard the lady.” The Master chuckles, clapping his hands together. “Ira, Luxu, why don’t you do the honors of forming the teams.”

“Elrena.” Ira calls out quickly, beckoning her in his direction. She looks mostly annoyed but crosses her arms and stomps in his direction.

“Rueki.” Xigbar smirks, I think no one is surprised.

“Vanitas.” Ira counters.

“Emyd.” Xigbar says.

“Ludor.” Ira says.

“Lauriam.” Xigbar finishes, and I’m sure it must vex Lauriam something awful to be the last pick, though he’s trying very hard to do what he does best and appear unruffled. They’ve got to have something fierce on him to warrant this level of composure. 

“Your objective today should test your current skillset, and teach you another.” Invi tells us. With the wave of his hand, Xigbar summons a portal, something blindingly white that swirls like the first snowfall of the year. I don’t appear to be the only one impressed. Even Vanitas looks tantalized and a sharp pang in my heart tells me that is certainly the case. Oh how delicious this light will taste. Xigbar ducks into the portal and dips out of another one that opens, just a few feet away.

“I’m sure you all remember opening dark corridors. Well darkness isn’t the only force in this realm with its own system of transportation. Light travel is gonna get you to and from each world without causing a breech. You’ll be undetectable to those other little thorns in our side, and it’s even faster than Gummi travel.” Xigbar winks--not blinks, definitely not blinks--at me. I bristle just a little, but I think I might just be excited by the prospect of a challenge? As I try and fail and fumble at sorting through my feelings I think yes, a challenge sounds awfully like something I might like.

“I would assume then, that summoning a portal is much the same, then?” Lauriam inclines an eyebrow. “To those of us competent to summon them?” Oh, haha, fuck off. Pissy bitch.

“I learned how to summon a dark corridor, dickhead. After you got maimed, because you could figure out what side to play.” I snark.

“Of course, because struggling to carve the right path is a problem unique to me.” Lauriam counters, in a voice like velvet. He’s a dick, I guess that hasn’t changed, but he’s hardly wrong.

“You are correct, Lauriam.” Invi nods. “You simply have to call upon the light within your heart, the very same light you’d use to summon your Keyblade, but imagine it transporting you to exactly where you’d like to go.” Her praise toward him is hardly subtle, and I’m sure she’s not the only one who wishes anyone else here was ‘the chosen one’. 

“Mastering that will aid you in today’s game. Hide and seek.” Gula announces. My lip quirks as I stifle a laugh, Elrena looks downright horrified by the prospect.

“If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.” Vanitas rolls his eyes. “I’m not a child.”

“You are though.” I counter.

“You’re forgetting I’m a lot older than you, witch.” He snaps and I just roll my eyes.

“Ven won’t even be eighteen for another six months.” I tease, knowing Vanitas’ physical age is damn near the same. He narrows his eyes.

“I’m sure you’re keeping great track of that day.” He snarls, like this has somehow turned into a brawl. 

“Wow, the whore jokes are really unique and clever. Not tired as all hell. Good for you.” I reply in a dry voice.

“Lack of tact aside, Vanitas isn’t incorrect. I think the bulk of us were expecting more of a challenge.” Ludor voices, stretching an arm across his chest, blue eyes hungry. And I’m sure he is. This is exactly his area of expertise.

“Hey, don’t question it. I’m down for an easy day.” Emyd laughs. 

“Oh man, haven’t you heard? Nothing fun is easy.” The Master teases. The world transforms around us, mist swirling in my hair as the pastel colored flowers morph into mossy, rolling hills and mountains lurching over an expanse of sea. The soil beneath my feet is nearly mush, I get the feeling that at any second, a monsoon might begin. The thick smell of seaweed hangs pungent in the air, but the place is beautiful, raw, untamed 

“This is...new…” Elrena breathes, for even she cannot deny how impressive this image is. Everything down to the humidity in the air is perfect, made to flood our senses. 

“What is this place?” Emyd looks around, mouth hanging wide open. 

“It’s data,” Vanitas mutters, eyes flitting every which way. “It has to be.”

“You’re correct.” Gula confirms. 

“It can’t be in the realm. Surely one of us would have stumbled upon a place like this.” Ludor speculates, looking just as taken aback as the rest of us.

“Oh no, definitely not.” Xigbar grins.

“Trust me when I say, you don’t want to be in this realm. You might think you want to, but you definitely don’t.” The Master says

“This place is remarkable though, I’ve seen nothing like it.” Lauriam sighs, looking around.

“And if you’re lucky, you’ll never see it outside of here. Ahch-To is hardly a dormant world. The sheer magic of this realm is unlike anything, any of us know.” Ira explains

“A Force in its own right.” Invi agrees.

“Your surroundings will switch at will, what might be an extraordinary hiding spot in one world, might be a dangerous predicament in another, and the latent magic in each of these worlds has transferred through in the data. If you’re wise, you can use it to your advantage.” Aced tells us. 

“Your goal will be to utilize your light travels to your benefit. The best hiding spots in each world can only be reached through less than conventional travel means.” Gula says.

“So my group, hiders, take off. You have five minutes.” Xigbar grins. My eyes flash to Emyd, Lauriam, Elrena, Vantas and Ludor--

And I take off like a bat out of hell.

Okay, I’m actual trash at teleporting. So light travel probably won’t work much easier or feel much better. But if I’m made for it, maybe it’ll come in time, the way everything with darkness did as a Nobody. I wave a hand, hoping to see a beaming portal of yellow light, but I’m met with a big fat load of nothing. 

“Fuck.” I hiss, with heavy breath as I scan the grounds around me. Every single one of my footprints is going to be noticable, and at least two members of the seeking team would love to smash my face into one of the cliff sides. I wave my hand again, nothing happens, so, in a quick and desperate move, I leap with all my might, hands barely grasping a particularly sturdy branch of the tree.

My palms scream, bare and uncalloused, thanks to the gloves attached to the end of the shirt I destroyed last night. Fucking careless idiot. No one is wrong about me having no impulse control. And this whole world being filled with latent magic probably means I’ll--

This world...Achoo, or whatever the fuck, is supposed to have a whirlwind of latent magic. A real force. My arms start to give, I suck in a breath, and release the branch to find that--

I’m dropping.

Fuck. 

Shit.

“Bliz--” But before I can properly conjure the spell, I realize I’ve stopped falling and haven’t hit the earth. Instead, I’m suspended midair, as though carried by an invisible bridge. I look around, half expecting Xigbar to be casting some sort of voodoo nonsense, but he’s turned away from where we all ran off to, along with the other Foretellers and the seekers. If I wasn’t trying to exercise some caution, I might scream with glee. 

Okay, okay, focus, I remind myself. My eyes flutter shut for the faintest trace of a second, longing to sense some of the power in my actions, the way I did with the world’s heart in Wonderland. And sure enough, I do. My eyes are closed, but I can see my surroundings perfectly. I see the mossy green land around me, the massive cliff sides, can smell the water, but now, I see discs in the air, white and suspended like a ladder, aching for me to climb. So, with my eyes still shut, I take a breath, swing my arms and leap onto the next disc. The cynic inside half wants me to fall. The sorceress assumes that my trust in magic is safe, and when I land on the next disc and don’t go tumbling, I thank Twilight for every weird magical occurrence in my life that has led me to just expect to be comfortable in things that shouldn’t be possible. 

I spring, launching myself to the next disc, then the next, then the next and again and again, until I’m hundreds of feet in the air, at the edge of a cliff. I leap onto it next and open my eyes wide, looking around to see my very stable, very tangible surroundings. I turn, leaning over the edge of the cliff and laugh, a small breathy sound. 

Wouldn’t want to end up in this realm, my ass. Whatever latent, magical force exists in this world, I am strong with it. 

But being up high is hardly a good place to hide, I appreciate having the high ground, but having it doesn’t mean that the likes of Vanitas or Elrena can’t find me. And Ludor, while not as dangerous to my physical health, is still not someone I’m burning to spend extended time with, and he’s a far better strategist than I am, all day long. I need something better than this, I need a…

My eyes find a path through an archway on the cliff, and unflinchingly, I follow it, as though a string has been tied around my waist and is yanking me forward. The draw is fucking uncanny, snatching at my deepest impulses to be guided, to seek, to taste even the faintest hint of knoweldge that I can be offered. It’s the latent magic of the world, I’m willing to bet and it leads me straight to a hole in the ground, something black and obscured with no end in sight. Dragging my teeth across my lip, I find a pebble on the ground and toss it into the hole, waiting for a clatter, which happens relatively quickly. The darkness is intense, but this wouldn’t be some sort of place I’d be lost in for eternity. And certainly not somewhere that anyone could easily spot me.

The pull does not cease. I take a breath and hold it as I plunge straight down into the blackness.

There’s something cool and calming in this type of darkness, something oppressing and soothing, something so different than the sunlight, scalding and burning harsh reality into me. It’s almost symbolic, and certainly reminds me of the ways I’ve buried myself and refused to resurface, because of how much safer it feels to be smothered by my own misery than anything else.

And why shouldn’t I feel that way when I am the only devil I know? For so long, I believed that Lea, despite his shortcomings, was a safepoint, a refuge in the gravest of storms, a haven where I could hide away, drinking in the scent of bonfire and sea salt and driftwood. But every single twisted ideology I wrapped around him proved to be nothing but a fallacy, and that’s why I walked away. Of course the Master’s plan is smarter than anything my friends could convince themselves to follow, and of course I know being intelligent often times means being an outlier, but dear Twilight, how hard would it have been to stand by me, to love me first and actually mean it, to not have to slap me in the face with each failure on my end, with each faulty choice I made in the wake of my best friend’s death? I needed ride or die, I needed unconditional, I needed endless, did I not deserve it? Was this truly all he could give? 

Which, how could I expect anything less? A man who grew up admittedly stunted, learning only violence and scheming and manipulation and death, is incapable of loving, no matter how hard I try to teach him, no matter what I do to beg and plead for him to learn otherwise. I gave everything I had and then some in pursuit of helping him learn to be human and where the fuck did that leave me? What the fuck good did that ever do for me, eventually Skuld will get it through her thick skull as well, that this man isn’t going to give me or her or anyone the kind of love that could be sustainable.

Unless he’s right. Unless there’s something wrong with me, unless I’m the one at fault and he’s just some sort of humble martyr on his knees, begging someone impossible to just be still, despite everyone in his world, unblinded by my toxic, windup doll bullshit, telling him to walk away for his own safety, to stop trying to chase those only meant to turn their backs on him.

Safely tucked away like this, spewing in my own slew of anger and hate and suffering, it doesn’t matter that tears are pinching my vision, stinging my eyes, burning what is already raw. It feels good, I tell myself, the pain is visceral and vivid and--

“Gotcha.”

Fuck.

Vanitas’ hands hoist me up by my hair, I grab the skin of his wrist and shriek.

“Thundaza!” The flash of lightning is straight up blinding, vibrating to the point of disorientation in the cavern, but Vanitas recoils, springing back and howling like a wolf. Just as I’m about to try to figure out how the fresh fuck I’m supposed to escape him, trapped in here, the ground gives out beneath me and I go--

Falling, endlessly, my own scream not the only one piercing the air. 

Vanitas roars above me and comes crashing my way, arms snaring around me, impossibly strong as he crushes me to his chest.

“This is for Wonderland, witch.” He snarls, voice deep and raspy in my ear, sending a jolt down my spine. As if going plummeting wasn’t horrifying enough, I know he’s strong enough to withstand another spell from me. I know that as the wind rushes around us, I can hardly conjure anything that would ding him up slightly, with my lack of focus. So I don’t cast a spell on him.

“Zero Graviga!” I cry out, and as fast as we were crashing, we halt, Vanitas’ weight nearly crippling me as we float. He lets out a cry, flailing his arms on either side of my head. “This is for my hair, babe.” I drive a knee straight between his legs and buck my hips, watching him scream as he free falls into the ground. I stay suspended like this, midair, my hands on my face as I try to catch my breath. Whatever that place was, Achoo or whatever, whatever that hole in the earth I found my way into was, wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. There was something dark about it, something grotesque and throat clenching, mind morphing, something only my dumb ass stumbled into, raw and sensitive as hell to the magical output from these worlds. There’s a cost to being magically inclined, and the only thing these past few months has taught me, is that the cost is often times my sanity. I clap my hands together, rubbing my palms as they fall away from my face and I look down at the world below me. It takes very little to realize I’m slowly floating into a kingdom, though a prehistoric one by the looks of it, possibly as old as the age of fairytales, all of the structures appearing to be made out of slate blue rocks, engraved and glowing with pale blue lights, that could blind from this height. Lauriam’s a vibrant shock of pink from this level is easy to pick out as he races around, being chased by a blond someone--Elrena or Ludor, based on the shock of bright blonde hair, though I can’t tell anymore than that. Wherever Emyd is, he’s hiding good, which is guess is probably his specialty, but Vanitas, he’s a fucking dark cloud, a damn blemish on the world, blackened and standing out against the glowing lights like a sore thumb. No sign of whatever blond is mi--

Elrena comes raining from the sky like an actual bolt of lightning, slams her hands into my shoulders and shoves me with her, shrieking all the way, cackling like a banshee. Hands on my shoulders, I straight up feel her sucking the power out of the air, snatching onto the brewing energy, and that’s her first fucking mistake. We crash into the ground and she presses her body tight to mine, slamming electricity into me, grinding volts, roaring in my ears, witch’s laugh so high and proud.

A bad move. And my signature at this point. She should be prepared when I reach around, snatch her by her slim hips, and press my fingers into the uncovered skin of her taut stomach, and send the bolts straight back into her. Really, she should know better. 

I turn around just in time to watch her head crash into the ground and her Keyblade appear in her hand, teeth chattering all the while. She’s something else, I’ll give her that, because despite my attack, she’s already raring to go, slashing only high enough to reach my hip, too low to do actual damage to anything other than my shorts, which now have a gaping hole in the side of them. I call Backbiter into my hand and slap Elrena’s electric, sparking sword out of her hand, and dash off, banishing my blade. She’s fast. As fast as me, and grudge holding and if I’m not smart about where I run, I’m going to crash straight into Vanitas and have the two out for my blood on my trail, which would be hard enough if I wasn’t running into a cliffside. 

“Come on.” I whisper, pinching my eyes shut, hoping to see more of those energy discs floating in the air for me to latch onto. But very much unlike the past world, I just see blackness and give up quite quickly, assessing the area. There are vines to use for climbing purposes but--

I see Elrena starting to rise in the distance. I wave my hand, thinking about bright sparkling light and getting the fuck out of here, but nothing happens.

Vines it is.

Sucking in a massive breath, I leap snatching a vine with shaking hands, loathing the immediate sandpaper feeling on my palms. Not what I imagined vines feeling like, nothing at all. Why can’t we hide in a fucking tundra, in a slate gray city? That I could work with. That wouldn’t strain every muscle in my upper body as I propel myself upward, reaching for the next vine, and the next, and the next. My core trembles, my legs are jello. Elrena isn’t far beneath me, having worlds less weight to carry, every muscle in her upper body tight, but strong. 

“Keep running, bitch, see where it gets you!” She growls, and to be honest, that’s fully what I intend to do, before the vines disappear, and the world shifts once more, sending the both of us tumbling. A massive building, a tower of a place is close enough to reach, so I do, fingernails popping off with an excruciating ache as I catch the wide ledge of one of the windows. Elrena is not so lucky, lower to the ground than I, she has less to grab onto, despite the wide base of the building, it’s not made for ruffians like us to latch onto. In fact as I grab onto the ledge with the other hand and push myself up, muscles twitching until I take a seat, legs dangling over the edge to watch the city sprawling beneath me. And a city it is, dingy, clouded with smog. There’s something dirty and draining about this place, about the thing I’m sitting on. This tower bubbles with raw power, sparking and buzzing. This isn’t a force, this is a source. I can’t see anyone in the darkness, in the blinding light coming off of this building. 

I do feel though, a hand on my ankle, and kick, shrieking like a fucking lunatic, like a frightened child, I scream and feel my throat shredding, but despite my thrashing and all my efforts, Elrena’s long fingers tighten around me and she tugs me down, onto a balcony just below us, my head throbbing and reverberating as I crash into straight up cement. I whimper, face crinkling, even before Elrena’s buzzing Keyblade comes my way. I can’t move, her ankles pin my legs in place, but I do twist, trying and failing to avoid her slash, which tears down the bridge of my nose, across my cheek and to my jaw, bringing the pang of a shockwave along with it. I’m trying not to scream, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction, but I don’t think the pathetic, breathless whimper as I clutch my face is much better. My hand draws away, there’s so much blood, fuck. 

She stares down at me, at the mess she’s made of my face, blade tracing her work over my hip.

“You think Xigbar can put you back together when I take you apa--” A loud gasp spills from her lips, she stops and her hands fall limp, barely clutching her blade. I look around wildly, trying to find something more deadly than her, something that could’ve frightened her to this degree, but her eyes remain transfixed on me. On the gash in my shorts--

Which exposes a litany of scars, including the mark Lea left on my hip.

“Axel?” She questions. I don’t realize for a moment, what she’s insinuating, left completely baffled by this whole encounter, but when I start to gather myself, I muster a nod, pushing myself up just a little with my triceps.

She turns, whipping away from me with the burst of a tornado. “Turn this fucking thing off!” She shrieks, and when there is no immediate response, she tips her head back and emits a violent roar that rips through the air. “Turn this thing off!”

And someone listens. The Master or one of the Foretellers, who knows, all I’m aware of is Lauriam, watching a duplicate Ludor created disappear and Vanitas, too close for comfort. From her profile, I see straight up venom in Elrena’s eyes as she marches toward the Foretellers. With a slung back arm, she barrels over and misses punching Xigbar in the face only by Ira’s outstretched blade, freshly summoned as a barrier. She wails at the impact, but shakes off a broken fist like a damn champ. Her shoulders are still tight as all hell, and for all of his grace, Lauriam is all but tripping over himself to close the distance between them.

“Elrena, whatever your concerns are--” He begins in a voice like honey, setting a hand on her shoulder, fingers barely brushing her skin. She sparks, just like me, she sparks and he recoils, clutching his hand to his chest.

“Don’t touch me, don’t fucking touch me again!” She cries, tilting only to consider him before rounding back to Xigbar.

“Explain yourself!” Ira orders her and she balks, barking out a laugh.

“Are you defending him?” She snorts. “Do you know, or are you another puppet?”

“Elrena, this sort of behavior is unacceptable, your outbursts yesterday were forgiven, you’ve no reason to push the envelope further with this inappropriate--”

“Spare the lecture,” She puts up a hand. Emyd’s eyes find mine. Ludor’s too and I just offer the two of them a shrug as I pluck myself up from the dirt, at least into a seated position. Ludor looks toward Elrena, toward me, toward her, then toward me again and steals the opportunity to make his way to me. He offers me a hand and greedily, I accept it, because I don’t have a quarter of an idea what the fuck is happening and a little bit of stability would be grand at the moment. “You want to harp on to everyone with a set of ears about how she’s yours? You’re gross. She’s what, half your age in this body alone? And if that weren’t enough--you know about that mark on her hip, don’t you? Axel’s thumb print, Axel’s fucking mark.”

“Hardly any of your business, blondie.” I can see Xigbar rolling his eye, a demon, a side of him I haven’t seen in a very long time. I take a step in toward Ludor and he responds so perfectly, setting a hand on my shoulder. I don’t stop him.

“We can go inside love, I’m quite comfortable with light travel.” He murmurs. “You don’t even need to speak to me.” 

But I shake my head. “I need to know what this is about.”

“You’re a fucking pig.” Elrena snarls, a feral alleycat, uncultured, furious. “You are so disgusting, do you know what that does for her? Do you know how hollow any of this could possibly feel, you pulled her to walk away from him, and you knew?”

“Well damn, El. Sounds like you know all about the feeling.” Xigbar taunts. Steam could pour off of her.

“You’re such a fucking...fucking disease.” She hisses. “Does she know?”

He doesn’t respond, just turns away and leaves her twice as visibly repulsed. She turns to me, for a second, pity etched across her features. It’s like for a second she could spare me, because she hates him so much more, it’s like for a moment, she could do me a kindness. Instead, she tears her gaze away from me and looks back at him.

“Have fun playing with your doll, you fucking roach. If for some godforsaken reason you convince her to crawl into your bed, I hope she screams his name.” And with that, she stalks off, leaving us all in the wake of her aftershocks. There are several sets of eyes on me, Ludor grips me a little tighter.

“You say the word, Rueki.” He breathes, and there’s a part of me that wants to, a part of me that has acknowledged the safety in running. But I think of what I said to Xigbar last night, and how little this can mean in our developing friendship if we’re not candid with each other. And what I assured myself, that I will never drive myself to feel as hollow as I did before I left Twilight Town. This doesn’t work if I stay in my rut, if I crawl away every time I want to. I used to fight, I used to scream, I used to feel better than this.

So I beckon Ludor to release me and take a step forward, curious and pleading. Xigbar is looking straight at me, the Foretellers are looking at me, every living thing in this world is looking at me, and this can be my stage or my prison and I know what I want again.

“Don’t make me have to ask.” I try. His jaw grinds, that’s visible from this distance. So I walk forward more, until we’re steps apart, until I’m tangible and vulnerable right in front of him. “Luxu.” I order and watch just how powerful a name could be, watch how he nearly snaps his attention to me, hyper focused. “Don’t be another man to lie to me when it counts.”

“I haven’t lied to you, kid. I haven’t said a whole lot about that thing, now have I?” He asks, looking quite aloof, gaze twisting away from me.

“Whatever you have on Elrena, you don’t have on me. I have people wishing I’ll come home, I’ll walk.” Good luck without your alchemist, though it’s a bluff of the highest degree and we both know that. I’m not walking from this cause.

“Good luck getting to your ship without light travel, kid, you think the barrier to this world only works one day?” He taunts, a wolf once more, despite the sheepskin he wore for me.

“You’re doing this to me?” I ask.

“I’m not lying to you.” He repeats and I could scream.

“And neither did he! He was quite fucking quiet when he neglected to tell me I was a Nobody and that he would sell me for Saix again and a fucking gain.” I snap. I don’t know what I was looking for, I don’t know what I was flocking toward, but not this. Where is the man who told me uch pretty stories and promised me any and everything that my greedy ears needed to hear? Is this on him or on me, on my now unwilling to believe mind? 

There’s a heaviness in the way the air stills around us, stagnant, broken. 

“You’ve got part of my heart, can you feel it screaming?” I ask, in a much smaller voice, a voice meant for him and him alone.

“You know, you should probably tell her.” The Master offers softly from beside him. I pinch my eyes shut, wishing it didn’t have to come to this, wishing I didn’t need to look for companionship in the most morally gray creature I could find every time. 

When I open my eyes, I notice how Xigbar’s aren’t on me and how his hands are shoved into the pockets of his coat and how very much he reminds me of Axel in the early days. This man, for all of the trust he tried to instill, is a monster. I’m always playing with fire, I can’t help myself. 

“That kind of mark is...something you recieve after...consummating your relationship with your soul’s other half for the first time.”

I wait for the punchline, but Xigbar’s mouth snaps shut, like his jaw is wired.

“Soul’s other half. Like soulmate?” Like how stupid does he think I am. He just shrugs and I balk. Something is wrong, something is very off, this isn’t actually possible, the piece of a heart was odd enough, knowing that I don’t own my heart in its entirety. But this is something else altogether, and I’m not a fucking moron. “A soul? A soul, are you fucking joking? I get that you think you live in a fairytale and shit is destined to happen, but I’m not goddamn dumb, Xigbar! My heart is half of yours and my soul is half of Lea’s? What sort of convoluted, half baked--” But no one stops me, and my hands start shaking and so do my lips, and hell, my tongue is straight led. Talk, I will myself, breathe, I urge myself. I can’t seem to remember how.

“It’s painful to be away from him for extended periods of time, you two are constantly at war, pushing and pulling for control over one another, you can sense his very essence?” He lifts an eyebrow. I open my mouth to disagree butt--

But there’s that ache I felt in Radiant Garden, the way I could see my own insides, and feel the ache radiating off of them, when I was searching for him. There’s the push and pull that keep us both screaming and begging for more, there’s the way it feels so extraordinary to just own him. The fact that I can’t even sleep without him, that now, in the permanence, the mark on my hip is shrieking. 

“It’s rare, extremely, I haven’t seen a case of it in hundreds of years and it shouldn’t be possible but...when I don’t have one myself, how could I have expected the Master to attach ours? I can hardly be your soulmate without a soul.” There it is, the way he tosses it around so freely. Soulmate, I’m somebody’s soulmate.

I’m sick, on his damn shoes. If Ludor wasn’t incredibly quick, my hair would surely be covered, but he is, he’s got me pinned back while I’m sobbing and shaking and retching. 

“I need to...Ludor…” I can’t fathom more words, let alone attempt to speak them.

“I know. Come, love.” He twists his arms around me and waves a hand.

“You can be pissed at me, all you want, sweetheart, I’ve come to terms with--” He says sweetheart, and unlike Elrena, I don’t miss, no one stops me when my fist crashes straight into his jaw.

Before anyone has a chance to react, Ludor yanks me straight through a portal that leads right to my door. 

I don’t know how long we stand just outside my room, my hands shaking against his chest, catatonic, unable to think or move or breathe or focus on anything more than my hip and the ache radiating off of it.

Footsteps start to echo down the halls and my eyes fly to his, huge and horrified, my lips trembling. 

“Love, where’s your key?” He asks, in a level voice. I push myself off of him, shaking my head as I fumble for my roomkey in my pocket, but I can hardly manage to--

His hands dart into my pocket, there’s nothing intimate about it, I just let him grab it and when he unlocks my door for me, I pull him into my room and lock up behind us.

I start to breathe again, but it comes too fast, blinding me, suffocating me. My vision starts to prickle, but I’m coherent enough to stumble over to the drawer of my nightstand. I grab my phone out of it, and somewhere at the edges of my mind, I hear Ludor calling my name. Hands gripping my phone like a vice.

“Rueki, what are you doing?” He asks.

“I’m gonna call Lea and beg him to forgive me.” I say, in a high, hysteric voice. I’m aware of the fact that I sound nothing like myself, but I’m far too frantic to even begin to question myself.

Me, someone split so clean in two, me who belongs to no one, not even myself, me torn and stretched to every edge of the extreme. Me, spread too thin. Me, running on empty to fill every single bit of everyone else. Me, the dumb bitch whose entire being is only meant to self destruct. 

Dear Twilight, I’m not made to last.

How long ago should I have snapped in half?

“Is that what you want?” He asks me, so gentle as he takes a step to me.

“I--” Does it fucking matter? When all I’m good for is crawling to someone? When all I’m made for is burying myself in men who are supposed to have a claim to me? Am I born to feel unfulfilled, am I supposed to be so empty, unable to feel pleasure, unable to heal because all of my light has to go to kids forced to grow up too fast, and all of my heart is spent trying to trust someone who wants to be my everything but can’t prove himself to be my anything, and all of my soul is wasted on someone who--

Someone who is crying too, someone who is trying to grow, but someone who won’t grow toward me. Someone I love more than life itself, but someone who has other goals. His world isn’t me anymore, our plans can’t match up no matter how we make them try. Am I stumbling back toward something broken?

Are we only broken because I am?

My phone falls to the ground, the screen cracking. A pair of arms twine around me and I come apart, a levee breaks.

Hours pass, or minutes. Seconds of endless falling and every goddamn thrum of the fucking clock tower is going to drive me insane. Stop rushing me, move a little faster. I want all and nothing, black and white, light and dark. 

My eyes are sore, I don’t stop crying, but Ludor makes up for all of the warmth he lacked previously, holding me tight when he can, braiding my hair back away from my face, forcing me to brush my teeth, urging me toward my bed. I find the sleeve of his shirt, hands brushing a bicep, desperately.

“Please you…” Words, Rueki! “Can you stay? I just...I can’t be alone tonight.” I beg. When he doesn’t immediately respond, my heart starts to hammer, a drum in my temples. “I’m not trying to make this something dirty, I just need someone who gives a quarter of a fuck about me beside me. Just tonight, please and I’ll never ask again.”

He’s quite unsure how to respond, I can tell in the way he pauses, the way he studies me, the way that when he finally moves, it is to brush my cheek with the back of his hand.

“All things considered, I think it’s the least I can do.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright friends, so I'm thinking you'll see another update from me on Wednesdays this week, Sundays and Wednesdays will probably be my posting schedule for the month. Right now I'm slated to go back to work on May 28th, but who knows if that will actually be the case or what, so for the time being, this posting schedule is only valid until the end of May

XXII.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised at how peacefully Ludor sleeps. This must be the way that normal people rest, and I guess there’s something quite comforting in the way he breathes heavily, not quite a snore, not quite the normal in and out.

I do sleep beside him, the two of us next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, less intimacy than even sleeping beside Kairi, just me counting the breaks he takes until I hear voices taunting my shortcomings and constitute them as dreams. I’m not tired, and time seems to have moved, I must have slept.

There’s a piece of paper shoved under my door that I should probably light on fire but resolve to ignore for now. I could write on the back of it, some kind of letter and contemplate who I might even write to. I could tell Xigbar to fuck himself.

I could scrawl out a message to Isa. ‘Guess you were right about me, I must be a whore. Two days after walking away from your best friend and I crawl into bed with another man. Har har.’ A smile pricks the edges of my lips, stinging like a needle. Odd that he’s the person I’d think to contact, but I’m reminded of us sitting on the beach next to each other, poking at each other just enough to laugh about. It’s on brand for our humor, he’d appreciate it, he’d get it. He'd understand exactly what kind of wreck I am as I write it. I wonder if he ever thought of writing something to me, ever thought to tell me not to take Axel for granted, or say something snarky to this effect, telling me I was right about him being Xemnas’ puppet, in the worst, most self loathing of ways.

Probably not, though.

I shift, looking to Ludor, detailing how he sleeps, the way he doesn’t have the growing restlessness that I do, the way that he hasn’t trained himself to wake the second I stir, the way Lea has, the way he can’t tell by the sound of my breathing that I’m awake, the way Kairi can. 

I look at him and think of all the ways every bit of our connection has been a choice. A rat’s ass of a choice most of the time, but this is something I consciously walk toward either for intellectual stimulation or old times sake or simply because I’m willing to look past more for people who have made me smile. My hope in him is always misplaced, who knows if this time something different will yield, us being on the same side and all, but there’s something unique about the fact that every bit of our relationship is a decision that we both make. It’s not something chosen by destiny, it’s not a weird tie, courtesy of some fucking ancient creature who decided to play mad scientist with hearts. It’s not souls, it’s not that he is made of light and I’m so obsessed with it, it’s not the relationship to a teenage boy who imprints his feelings onto me. I want Ludor here, I had hope for Luxord because that is what I want. Me. No one else.

My hands start to shake.

I don’t belong to myself. I don’t fully belong to someone else. I want to defy every bit of nature, straddle the man beside me and convince myself that I can have and feel something for someone other than Lea, that I can be intrigued by a man that isn’t Xigbar, that Del was a fluke but I can have a fulfilling life that I choose, that no one can force upon me, that no one makes me--

The mark on my hip burns, I start crying again and tear out of bed, grabbing an outfit from the dresser next to the attached bathroom before disappearing into it. No one follows me into the shower, no one wraps their arms around me, no one frantically touches me, trying to displace their anxiety in little kisses, in brushes, in tastes. I miss him the way the seasons miss each other, chasing one another into a planet's rotation, the way thunder misses lightning, seconds and lifetimes apart. My eyes find the mark on my hip, his thumbprint, and I wonder do I miss him or is it just that we’re so stapled to each other? It’d feel the same if someone amputated my arm, wouldn’t it? There’d be a grieving process and possibly phantom sensations my entire life. I’m sure I’d never go a day without missing my arm, even if I learn to live without it, even if a prosthetic replaced it. I should be grateful, should realize that no wonder I’ve grown so codependent, I’ve literally grown and curled around my other half. I did what felt natural, I surrendered to the push and pull, lying flat beneath the waves of all he is and all we are. I let him take me and stopped pushing back and I fucking drowned. I don’t feel grateful, I don’t feel good having answers. I feel like ripping the tiles out of this shower with the fingernails that have already popped off, I feel like shattering the mirror in this bathroom and smashing my knuckles to pieces so I can have my pain, not Xigbar’s, not Lea’s, mine. I feel like carving out my own heart just to see if when darkness takes me, I can finally find solace. If I just fade into it, it couldn't be worse than fading into someone else. 

A Heartless doesn’t have a heart to split, a soul to share. 

The water runs cold long before I get out of the shower, the mirrors no longer fog and I watch myself change into the black high waisted leggings and a baggy cropped v-neck. My face looks like hell, still bleeding. Not gushing, but it's still not a great sign. The fucking thing is going to scar up whether I take a Potion or not, so I guess I might as well guzzle one. My hair’s growing back. A little. It’s not salvageable, it’s too far back to count as bangs, so I twist my hair once again into a super high, super sloppy, wet bun, finding Ludor awake and redressed when I’m out of the shower. Part of me wonders, if he left for his room to get ready, why didn’t he stay gone?

The other half is just hella thankful he didn’t.

“I feel like a discussion is in order.” He says, looking up at me from where he sits on my freshly made bed. My face burns. He really didn’t need to do that.

“I’m not ready to talk about what happened yesterday.” I shake my head.

“And that’s hardly a discussion I assumed you were ready for.” His eyes flick to mine, an easy smile settles onto my lips and his. This, I remind myself, is why I still hope. “Let’s not either of us pretend that’s something I’m equipped for.”

“No, me either I don’t think.” I confess, climbing onto the bed, legs folding up as I sit beside him. “So, this is why you followed Xehanort? You said your motivations weren’t for him, that last time you weren’t playing for yourself. And Skuld told me that it was your spell that sent them hurtling into the future. You were just trying to clean up your own mess, weren’t you?”

“You’re painstakingly clever in the oddest of times, love.” He offers me a look that’s more pity than praise, and I suppose that is a little easier of a pill to swallow. “It was indeed my spell that sent the bulk of us forward. And it came with the greatest of costs.”

“Your memories.” I predict.

“For the others, yes.” He agrees. “But I cast the spell, my toll was my life.”

“And that’s why you’re familiar with Shibuya.” My eyes widen. Of course, he would’ve barely been Sora’s age when he died, he would’ve still been a child, and the UG would’ve offered him another chance at life. Of course he’d have won, of course he’d have solved every riddle any GM could've thrown at him. 

“Shinjuku more specifically. I was swept into their underground, but in the years I spent there, there were plenty of dealings with Shibuya.” He nods.

“You were a Reaper. That’s how you got that Key card.” I predict. A smirk pulls tight and devilish across his features.

“I was far more than a Reaper, love. But I am pleased that the boy figured out its use.” Ludor grins, pleased as punch.

“How could you have known that Sora was going to die?” I ask, and he chuckles, carding a hand through his short hair. 

“That was merely speculation, a gamble on my part, but the boy had been foolhardy, diving into hearts to wake them, when that is hardly his place. But I also knew that Shinjuku was on the brink of destruction, you see, Inversion can be quite the trap to be caught in. The poor boy was hardly equipped for that, even in the likely event that you came barrelling after him.” He confesses.

“You’ve aged though, I don’t understand.” I shake my head. “Skuld says you guys were kids, you all would’ve been the same age as Ven, I know why she aged, but if you were dead the whole time, how could you have--”

“I merely fell from grace.” He waves a hand as though it is quite simple. “My successor and I are still on extraordinary terms, but you’re right. I should be around the same age as Ven. And what would a teenage boy, high on his own victory, convinced he was unable to lose, do when he sensed a shifting in the realm, and discovered that his friends were popping up left and right, unconscious, without memories, all drawn to the same trap of a man?”

“You tried to save them.” I chew my lip.

“And I came remarkably close with Skuld. I didn’t anticipate Luxu’s involvement, nor did I know what he looked like. The young Master I recall from my childhood always had his face covered in the shadows of a hood.” Ludor explains, face bunching up as he looks at me. “Love, I hate to trouble you but your face is still bleeding.”

“Fuck.” I grumble, more embarrassed than anything, it’s my own stupid fault for not guzzling a Potion when I needed to. “Thanks.” I scramble up, wiping my face with the back of my hand. From within my belt, which is strewn across the floor, are plenty of Potions and I take one and knock it back, examining my face in the mirror as the blood starts to dry and the wound begins to close. Yeah, that one is not going to look good. Ever. “And like...thank you for staying yesterday.” From within the mirror, I see him open his mouth and struggle for breath, like he’s about to announce something monumental, but closes his mouth again instead. “So, you were close to saving Skuld, but Xigbar intervened.”

“Quite, yes.” He says, eager to be returning to some sense of normalcy in the conversation. While he may be substantially less of a prick and far more interested in having my back, I do have to remember that my relationship with Luxord never consisted of me spilling my guts, I should hardly have tossed them all onto Ludor like things would be any different. “I attempted to track her, even after she disappeared out of that forsaken cell in Radiant Garden, but as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, the world fell a mere six months after. My trail on her went completely cold and my pursuit of the king, Ansem, led me only to Xehanort.”

“You’re not the only one she led that way.” And it makes me want to scream at her, to shake her shoulders and say that while I might be sabotaging every damn thing I love, she’s no better than me, leading her friends straight into darkness. 

“I am not surprised the two of you took issue with each other.” Ludor grins, almost amused by the whole ordeal. “Both dynamic in your own right. I’d never met a more bossy creature before her and hadn’t until I met you.”

But I don’t respond with grace to him comparing us. I think of her eyes, like molten gold, looking upon Lea, drinking in every last thing I’ve ever loved, like a nectar made solely for her. He’s not, I remind myself. He was made for me in the literal sense of the word, we're going to reconcile, this is all going to be worth it.

“Eventually the chase wasn’t just for her. Roxas’ appearance in the Organization made it quite clear that somehow, in some way, Ventus had survived. I was hardly pleased to see Lauriam straying onto such a dark path, but I hardly knew him or Elrena or Emyd. And Lauriam didn’t particularly trust me around the time that our data Daybreak Town crumbled. It was better that he couldn't recall me. All of their faces though, they instilled such fervor. I was a boy when I cast that spell, when I sprung us forward in time, and it was disastrous. I lost a very dear friend. But there were things I could rectify, a life I could see to completion, a promise to old friends that I would help them safely evade the dangers threatening to consume us all.” His fists curl, skin white and taut across the bones of his knuckles. “We were mere children, I know you know this. But we couldn’t have realized how blindly we were stumbling even if we were fully grown. Not even the wisest of creatures could have understood the Master of Masters and his reach.”

My hand flutters to my heart, to yet another thing that can never and will never fully belong to me, I think of all the damn pieces Xigbar had to be sure would line up, the way things fell just perfectly into place for little old me.

“It doesn’t make me feel any better.” I drag my teeth across my lips. I’m sure he feels the same.

“Why are you here, Rueki?” He asks me, hand settling onto mine, all the trepidation of a butterfly. We stare at our joint hands, he makes a move to pull away and I guess I let him, because as quickly as he touched me, he withdraws, setting his hand back down on his knee. 

“Because my friends are stupid.” Because Kairi died, because I needed someone so bad that I put every bit of who I am into my relationship with Lea and died the second he took a step aside. Because Isa spent years finding me a cliff and Skuld took her chance to shove me off of it and the only one who could brave the fall was someone so delightfully snarky and clever that how could I not imagine what my life might be like under his guidance? I’m so tired, what more could I know than following the same old worn down paths, slick with my own stuttering footsteps. “Xehanort killed Kairi. I loved her more than anything in this world, something’s been broken ever since, the closest it ever came to feeling fixed was about six months after the war ended. Lea broke his own bones to raise me back up, we grew into each other. I haven’t ever felt that whole in my life, and Skuld came stumbling into our world, I discovered someone had plans for me and watched that scare the people I loved away.” I swipe a hand, covered only with dried blood from my face, across my leggings. “I can’t do another war. But I think the only thing worse would be a lifetime more of them. Xigbar showed me what the world could be like, what it was like for you when you were a kid.”

“Magical, endless.” Ludor says, wistfully. 

“Yeah.” I agree. “There are too many scars on my body for one lifetime, I don’t want to constantly have to play someone else’s games.”

“So you create your own.” He accuses, which I don’t love, despite how soft his tone is.

“Why are you here?” I ask, defenses prickling up.

“There’s reason to believe that Luxu and the Master of Masters have some sort of...pull on each of us. They're men that knows no boundaries, no limitations. Why would they not tantalize each of us with the thing we most want?” Ludor lifts an eyebrow.

“And what do you want?” I ask. He’s silent for a very long time, for so long that I start considering what my day will look like, what my mission will consist of, since once again I’ve run into a standstill with someone I had been so open with only moments ago. 

“To make amends to those who have been wronged by my own foolish impulses. To say that I understand what the Master feels is an understatement. I have pushed every bit of the extent of my luck, I have toiled with time not understanding it to be a gift, I have cheated death far too many times for one creature, it’s not natural, nor is it fair.” He tells me.

“And you’re a crusader for what’s fair?” I ask, almost scoffing, but this pained little smile painting his features wipes away my amusement.

“For far too long, I was not. And you, my friend, were a means to an end. Your near demise at Saix’s hand was the most humbling thing I had encountered since being truly mortal. I was reminded of what loss could truly feel like. I was reminded of the grief in the hearts of those who I was supposed to care for, because I didn’t have the right cards to play.” He tells me, draining the oxygen from the room, stilling my trembling hands with only his words. “I do have the proper cards, of late. It would be doing a disservice to the boy I was, to allow the man I am to not play them.”

Maybe I’m not the only one in the game to save the world. Maybe it was stupid to think I was the only one without a greedy wish.

“There’s still something left in this realm to fix.” I say.

“Hope is quite unlike you, you’re typically far more sardonic.” He accuses, and I bark out a laugh.

“We can chalk it up to neither of us being particularly pleasant as Nobodies, if you’d like?” I offer, cocking my head to the side.

“Why forgiveness, dear Rueki?” He teases. I snort.

“I know, I know, not really my thing.” I wave a hand. “But...I was nearly sick when I thought I might be fighting you again. You’re my friend, even if you are a real bastard.” I dig an elbow into his side and he sets a more certain hand on my arm.

“If I may though, I do have a question for you, and you can neglect answering it if you’re so inclined.” He begins, and for once, I think our interaction might not be a currency to him, something he will trade to the highest bidder. Maybe we actually are friends. I nod my head, urging him to continue and he clears his throat. “Your persistence toward referring to Luxu by his previous name is...quite unique to him.” He’s not wrong, and I heave a sigh.

“I know, mostly I was just being a defiant little asshole. If I belonged to Luxu then I wasn’t ever going to acknowledge him as that.” Even though it doesn’t matter who he is anymore, it matters who I am, because at the end of the day, none of me belongs to me. “I know, it’s really dumb and superstious, I’m embarrassed to be admitting it.” 

“It’s defiant and unreasonable. That’s terribly you, don’t do yourself the disservice of being ashamed about that, love.” He urges me, forcing a smile to my face. “Though if that’s the case, it appears that Xigbar wrote you a note.” He says, nodding his head toward the door. I press my lips into a pout and push myself out of bed, stomping over toward the folded letter for effect.

‘Come on, kid.

You puked on my shoes and clocked me pretty good, you’ve already won. It’s not like I lied to you, but I’ll make it up to you anyway. I’ll teach you how to light travel, show you around town, tell you more stories.’

Fuck you too. I snap my fingers and ignite the note, unsatisfied until all that remains are embers that I can stomp out. 

“That bad?” Ludor laughs. I shrug, like I wouldn’t bang anyone in this castle against Xigbar’s door just to make him ache, like I wouldn’t profess love to a stranger just to feel his pain, throbbing from the depths of my heart. Cheap fucking bastard thinks I already won, he doesn’t know me for shit.

He’s not my soulmate.

“I need to get heading out. Princesses to sweet talk and all.” I say quickly, rubbing my palms together.

“I’m not in any way attempting to overstay my welcome, love, but if you fancy company, I wouldn’t be opposed.” He looks at me with raised eyebrows and an open heart and for the first time ever, I think I’m seeing the child Skuld and Ven befriended. My teeth drag across my lower lip. 

“You have a mission, too.”

“Forgive me if you’re not the only one avoiding that group.” Ludor’s smile is all self deprecation. I get it. I’m not the only person who’s dealt with Skuld taking up too much space in their mind. 

“You know, being my friend comes with shit for rewards, and you don’t need to repent anymore. The Master’s little prize is worlds nicer than listening to me mope.” I insist. He shrugs. “Not playing for a satisfying victory anymore?”

“Ahh, only fools still play to reap a bounty.” There it is again, the glint, like gold, in his eye. I set a hand on my hip.

“You’ll have to open all of the portals, I can’t figure out light travel.” I smirk.

“How very you.” He cackles. “Where first? Shibuya, I would assume, since you seem to have connections?” And I’m curious about his, I have a feeling he’d tell me anything about it I want to hear right now.

“Definitely not.” I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was looking for me there. I recall the list in my mind and spew out the first name that comes to me. “What about that Section 71…” I make a face.

“Section 17, Area 51.” Ludor cracks a smile.

“It sounds like it should be made of data.” I pout. 

“Hardly.” He waves a hand. “And you’re not quite dressed for it.”

“Why, is it some sort of tundra?”


	24. Chapter 24

XXIII.

No apparently Section 17, Area 51 is not a tundra. It’s a fucking muggy, sticky, thick sunspot on a planet called Earth, a planet where fifteen minutes worth of the sky vomitting a monsoon, followed by hours of scorching, stifflingly opressing sunlight are considered normal. 

There’s something fucking wrong with this place. 

The sand is reminiscent of the Destiny Islands, the waters aren’t too far off either, but this world is clearly grossly overpopulated, every square inch of the beach is filled to the brim with sunbathers. 

“Nope.” I pop my lips.

“More specifically?” Ludor lifts a brow beside me, somehow not looking as sweaty, swollen and waterlogged as I’m sure I do, fanning myself even though I changed into shorts at his suggestion. I’m gonna end up chafing like a son of a bitch after this.

“I don’t like this world.” I clarify, stomping past a group of beach dwellers who don’t pay me any mind, which is fine. All the better what with me going in and fucking around with the world order.

“Did you not spend copious amounts of time in Sora’s home world?” He inquires, chasing after me, keeping up with ease.

“No. We mostly just hung out at mine and Lea’s house in Twilight Town.” In the single most beautiful world I have ever had the pleasure of living in, in a house that screamed my name the second I walked in the door, a house we put an offer on the night he proposed to me. Lea, the most perfect man in the realm, someone worlds too good for me, someone I took for granted. What the fuck am I doing, I had a good life and I--

The heat makes it that much harder to snap myself back to reality, but with all of the enthusiasm of a dry rotted rubber band, I bounce back, sucking in an unsatisfying breath of humid air. Fuck Sector 17, Area 51.

I’m doing this because I did have a good life and it turned to shit. I’m doing this to make sure it doesn’t ever turn to shit again, I’m doing this because I love my friends more than they love themselves. It’s lonely in the short term and rewarding as hell long term and that is absolutely something I can tolerate. I just have to grind through. I’ve been through worse and I’m going to get through this.

“How are we supposed to find a Lilo in such a fucking crowded place anyway?” I huff.

If I were a simpler woman, I might believe some sort of sentient power in the universe is taking pity on me. You’ve had it rough, Rueki, what a shit week, here’s a silver lining.

“Lilo!” A woman’s voice screams. The sound of a child shrieking fills the air, not a damn beach dweller lifts their head. A little girl runs past me, ebony hair streaking like silk in the wind. At her side, a blue little--

What the fuck is that?

It’s not a dog, definitely not, but it runs on all fours, faster than her, toward the water. Not far behind them is a woman, with the same silken black hair and a stature not unlike mine, looking like steam could come out of her ears at any moment. She looks around the crowd, eyes narrowed, and I turn too, searching for the girl. 

Neither she nor the blue monstrosity are visible, but the woman turns to us, looking Ludor and I over.

“Please, no more alien travelers.” She cards a hand through her hair. Because apparently the fact that we’re not bathing suit clad makes us aliens. I guess she’s not wrong.

“You are looking for Lilo…” It’s more of an observation than a helpful suggestion but she sighs as though relieved.

“Did you see where she went?” She asks. Both Ludor and I point toward the beach. She heaves another exasperated sigh.

“Thank you.” She nods. “Lilo!” She roars louder, dashing off toward the surf.

“Well…” I trail off.

“I suppose we’ve found your princess.” Ludor tries.

“Complete with an alien sidekick, apparently.” I mutter.

“At least the world order has already been thoroughly shattered.” 

\--

For a child that probably comes up to my hips, and a strange looking alien dog thing, the Lilo kid is hard as hell to spot, and the beach doesn’t get any less crowded. Ludor and I huddle up on a spot in the sand that looks minimally miserable, with giant lemonades at hand. Water brushes my toes, warm like a bath. Squeaking children rush past us, splashing each other and us in turn. My mouth presses into a frown, I take a massive gulp of lemonade, wiping salt water off my cheeks.

“That’s a very particular look.” Ludor smirks. Sunburnt and sweating my ass off is hardly an attractive look on me, and this sun is hellacious. Fanning myself with one hand, I shrug.

“Just thankful I’ve got a birth control implant.” I reply which causes him to snort and choke on his lemonade in a fashion far less composed than I’ve ever seen. So I laugh too, only to be instantaneously distracted by the vibrant flash of a camera. I blink away spots, searching for whoever the fuck thinks it’s a cute idea to take a picture of me, in the midst of melting, and come face to face with the little girl from earlier, hostility draining in place of relief. “You!” I point at her.

“Hello.” The girl, Lilo, says so breezily, like this is normal and acceptable behavior in this world. The little alien dog thing appears beside her, standing on its hind legs to wave to us.

“Hi.” It says, in a strangely high, throaty voice. I blink like a cartoon again, probably looking hella ridiculous, unable to form actual words. Quick Rueki, think, get this girl to stay here for more than fifteen seconds.

“You’re not from here, are you?” She asks, cocking her head to the side.

“Is it quite obvious?” Ludor inquires, stepping in where I am lost. Thank fuck he’s here, what did I think I was getting myself into, attempting to smooth talk and negotiate? This girl is a fucking child, she’s not in a position to be jutting out her power to some strange, unsavory woman with scars all over her body. What the hell am I supposed to say to her that could ever make me feel good about swindling a little girl?

“Yeah, you both look like you haven’t seen the sun in a long time.” She nods, so incredibly candid, that it’s actually kind of delightful. A smirk prickles at the edges of my lips. “I like your face.” She tells me.

“My face?” I blink.

“Well, all of your stripes.” She tells me. “But your face looks the coolest. It sparkles in the sun, Kind of like alien slime.” 

Have I found a child that doesn’t frighten or exasperate me? Is she possibly a wayward teenage boy in disguise because I mildly want to adopt her.

“Alien slime, that’s certainly a compliment on your level.” Ludor says, I cackle, grin spreading across my face.

“I’ll give you that. You’re speaking my language, kid.” I wink at her.

“My name’s Lilo.” She corrects. My eyes fly wide. Oh. That’s why this little girl is so tolerable. She’s me. Well, me at her age. Which means this strange little alien dog is probably her only friend, which is kind of miserable to consider. “This is Stitch.”

“Hi.” Stitch repeats. Memories flood my mind as Stitch spews out more gibberish, Ven’s memories of being in space with this thing, Sora’s memories of calling this creature into battle for help. 

What fresh fucking luck.

“My friend Sora knows you.” I say. “And Ventus.

“Ven, Terra, Ah-koo-wah.” Stitch replies enthusiastically and I sigh blissfully.

“Yes, all three of them. I’m pretty sure they’re at my house right now.” I nod, heart warming a little before quickly freezing. At my house. Or out looking for me, or on some other mission, talking shit about what kind of traitor I am.

But that’s not right. I’m sure Aqua doesn’t agree with the path I’m taking, I’m sure she’s the most vocal of all three about that, but because she understands. I think the same would hold true for Terra, who is probably insistent upon my redemption because he still doesn’t believe he deserves his. And Ven? Ven hasn’t said a single goddamn negative word about me, no matter what anyone else says, no matter what sort of bullshit is thrust into his head. Ven isn’t happy with me, Ven wishes he could change my behavior, but Ven will not indulge anyone in dogging me. 

“Friends.” Stitch agrees.

“If you know Stitch’s friends, my sister must have been right about you.” Lilo taps her chin and looks around, at the massive throngs of visitors on the beach. With an eager hand, she beckons me forward, so I lean in, allowing her to cup a hand to my ear and whisper. “My sister thinks you’re an alien.” 

She pulls away, looking conspiratorially at me. I contemplate what Rueki at this age would like to hear in response. 

“What do you think?” I ask. She taps her hand to her chin again.

“I think if you know Stitch, she was probably right.” Lilo nods before beckoning me back to whisper in my ear once more. “Nani really is right about most things, but don’t tell her I told you.” 

Nani, said sister, is accompanied by a man with slick, fancy hair as she makes her way toward Lilo, Stitch, me and Ludor.

“Lilo, what did I tell you about bothering tourists?” Nani heaves an exasperated sigh. My eyes light up. Hello, solution.

“They’re not really tourists, you were right about them.” Lilo says, shrugging.

“More?” The man beside her asks. Nani sighs again, like such a habit is reflexive at his point. 

“We come in peace.” Ludor says beside me, smirking a little, like this is some sort of joke, and the guy with Nani laughs a little too. Nani, however, looks a lot more skeptical.

“Your sister is pretty darn cool and I don’t usually say that about kids.” I admit, which causes Nani to bristle.

“Look, I’m glad you helped me find her earlier, but we’re already over capacity on the uh...types like you we have space for.” She says, setting a hand on her curvy hips. 

“And I’m guessing it’s been what, the past year or so now, that you’ve been seeing a lot more of...our kind? Maybe little black things with yellow eyes and antennas?” I lift an eyebrow.

“Love…” Ludor begins, but I shake my head.

“Lilo, what did you tell her?” Nani asks, but Lilo shakes her head, vehemently. 

“Nothing.” She insists.

“And I’m guessing they want a lot to do with Lilo. They follow you everywhere you go, kid?” I ask.

“Pretty much.” Lilo nods. 

“Are you here about them?” Nani asks. Lilo looks from her sister, to me, to her sister and to me again. She beckons me forward again, so I lean, letting her whisper, this time a lot more of a stage whisper, meant solely to get under her sister’s skin. 

“I think she’s asking you so many questions cuz she thinks you’re dangerous.” Lilo tells me, smirking up at her sister, who is rolling her eyes. I smirk a little and stage whisper back to her.

“Will you tell your sister I like her style? I’ve got a little nugget like you that keeps trying to walk into danger too. You wouldn’t believe how exhausting it is to keep people like you safe.” I say, grinning at Lilo.

“You have a sister?” Lilo asks, I shake my head.

“No, just a best friend with a heart a lot like yours. I’d do anything to keep her safe. It really irritates her sometimes.” I confess.

“I bet.” Lilo agrees. 

Nani crouches down beside me, fancy boy looking to her for a lead.

“David, could you grab Lilo and I a lemonade?” She asks, jutting him over some money after fumbling around her pocket.

“Stitch too?” Lilo pleads. Stitch makes an affirmative noise and Nani sighs once more. 

“Stitch too.” She agrees, handing David more money. He just nods, seeming pleased as punch to be in her life, even to this extent. My stomach churns. What sweetness, what unconditional beauty. It would be something, quite something indeed to be loved with such sureness. As David departs, Nani looks around, to the very occupied tourists within earshot, half of them wearing headphones. “You said someone like my sister, and a heart like my sister’s...what did you mean by that?” Her dark eyes are bright. I’ve no doubt she knows. On some level, to some capacity.

“In the last year, your sister’s been more resilient, right? She doesn’t stay down long, the weight of the world doesn’t seem as heavy on her, but it’s made her restless, and it’s drawing those creatures to her, and well, probably danger in general.” I predict. Nani’s face contorts, Lilo looks up at me, huge eyes curious. “My best friend is the same way.”

“And, let’s say you’re right. What does that mean for Lilo?” Nani asks.

“It means your sister is extraordinary.” I say. “Her heart is filled with great power and tremendous strength. Somewhere along the line, one of the people in this realm, meant to protect the light, thought your sister might be a worthy protector of it.”

“My sister is a child.” Nani bristles.

“I’m very aware. Which is why I’m talking to you. My best friend was a child when she was bestowed with this kind of power. No one asked her permission, no one explained the costs or the consequences to her.” I press my mouth into a frown.

“What were the consequences?” Lilo asks, leaning up on her toes.

“Darkness devoured our home when we were kids. Probably in search of her heart. We made it out safely, but a lot of people didn’t. A lot of our friends and family died. She was safe for a little while, but she was chased again by the darkness, by people wanting to steal her light. She was kidnapped and used against her friends, and left on some island by people she loved, to rot, while they grew without having to worry about her.” My throat tightens, I try to swallow, but the effort feels tremendous, and I’m touching my neck, hoping to all hell that I can just take a damn breath and stop thinking about the freckly girl who gave me puppy eyes and didn’t have to ask me to stay with her, when I should have been searching for Lea. I shouldn’t be thinking about making pizza and getting into a dough war or introducing her to Cid or spending the night with her when Lea and I briefly broke up. I shouldn’t think about holding her to my chest and soothing her as we died or how she used those same words to soothe me when she gave her life for Sora’s. I shouldn’t be… I shouldn’t be wanting her more now that she’s not beside me. “When she finally got a chance to defend herself she…” I drag my teeth across my lips. “She got hurt really bad. I thought I lost her for a very long time.”

“Why are you telling us all this?” Nani shakes her head. 

“Because I’m pretty damn sick of watching kids get used. And I don’t think it’s fair for any more little girls to be expected to put their lives on hold or fear for them, just because someone else gave them a gift they never asked for.” A gift I want, if I’m being honest.

“She said a bad word.” Lilo whispers to Stitch. Nani gives her a look like ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’ and I wonder if Nani has any openings for a friend, because I could use one like her.

“My sister’s been through enough. And I don’t know you.” Nani says, but she’s looking at me in a way I understand, in a way that pleads that I can find the words to convince her, that I can change her mind. 

“You don’t.” I agree, and hope against all hope that the words I wanted to hear are the words she’ll want as well. “But I’m trying to make sure no more children have to go through what my friend went through. That no one who loves them has to feel how I’ve felt ever again. This is too high a calling for a child, the world could protect her if she relinquished her light to it, the world should be able to protect her, you shouldn’t have damn aliens raining down from the sky, she should be able to play and grow and hang out with this...dog thing without having to normalize the weight of protecting humanity, this young.” I swipe my tongue across my chapped lips and run my palms across my bare thighs. “She deserves better, so do the people who love her. Don’t you ever think this is isn’t right or okay?”

“More often than not.” Nani’s brow puckers together, she looks at Lilo and cards a hand through her hair. “Why are you even asking me though, no one else seems to.” Ouch, do I feel that.

“Because she’s a child. She’s not ready for the weight of these choices, even if she thinks she is.” I say and Lilo promptly huffs.

“Hey!” She protests, tiny hands balled into fists.

“Come on kid, I wish I had someone to do this for me when I was your age.” I ruffle her hair which immediately has her more frustrated.

“She’s right, Lilo.” Nani crosses her arms to her chest.

“You already agreed not to act like my mom!” Lilo whines, eyes narrowed.

“Sister’s have to look out for each other too!” Nani groans. 

“Plus, you can’t really be mad at your sister when your heart’s full of all that light.” I say, giving the kid a cheeky little smirk, which has her eyes widening, clear contemplation flashing through them. “You’ve felt it then, right? You get over things faster than you can process them, all you wanna do is keep the peace. Can’t even scream at her for more than a few seconds. Sisters are supposed to scream, right?” 

“Are you sure you don’t have a sister?” Lilo asks, crossing her arms to her chest. I bark out a laugh, wanting to hug this girl. This cheeky, sassy, sweet, princess of--

Yeah, it’s not Lilo I want to hug. Or to scream at. Or just...break down at, explode on? 

What would be different if I had opened my fucking mouth instead of trying to fit pieces that didn’t work and gave up when they didn’t? Why couldn’t I have just acted instead of fucking reacted when that’s not who I am? Why did I have to drop Kairi because I was so fucking afraid to lose her again? How could she leave me? How could she let me leave.

My phone is right in the drawer of my nightstand. It would be so easy to call her up, to explode when we’re not face to face.

“Lilo, she’s right.” Nani says. “The world should protect you.”

“But what if I want to save the world?” Lilo asks, brow knitting together with the same misplaced naivety that I’ve seen in Kairi a million times over.

“This is how you do it.” I tell her, tilting my head to the side, trying to meet her with kindness when that’s all a kid should be met with. “The whole world needs what you have in your heart. If you give it back to the world, you can be a hero without all of the responsibility.”

“With great power does come great responsibility.” Lilo contemplates, more like she’s just reciting something she’s read rather than actually processing her own words. 

“So doesn’t that mean it’s your responsibility to do the right thing?” Nani asks, setting a hand on her hip, I can nearly sense the relief waiting for her. How easy it will be to talk someone she loves into doing the right thing, how nicely her world will fall back into place, how achingly, deliciously normal her life will be. “Don’t you think this is the right thing?”

“How do I do it?” Lilo cocks her head to the side, my throat constricts, my eyes go huge. Oh fuck…

A hand rests on my shoulder, Ludor leans forward.

“Rueki is able to do it for you.” He says. My face gets hot.

“Um, no I can’t.” I whisper back.

“Of course you can. A simple extraction is well within your realm of capabilities, don’t be modest.” He taps my back then leans closer to my ear. “I’ll walk you through it, but we’ll want to go someplace quiet, I highly doubt you want to pull your Keyblade out in the open.”

I’m not actually opposed to it, or even stirring up the world’s order when clearly darkness doesn’t care either, but I nod and push myself up to my feet.

“Well, then we shouldn’t be on this beach, we might get some weird looks. Where’s some place we won’t have eyes on us?” I lift an eyebrow.

“Our backyard.” Lilo volunteers.

“Lilo, you and Stitch go get David, and we’ll all head over there. It’s not a far walk from here.” Nani says.

“Okay!” Lilo nods, enthusiastic as all hell about the prospect of antagonizing her sister again, as she skips off with Stitch, recanting to him all of the fights she’s going to get in with Nani and someone called Myrtle all the while. Nani’s gaze falls back on me as Ludor climbs to his feet beside me.

“Thank you.” Nani breathes, setting a hand on her heart. “It hasn’t been easy at all on us since our parents died, but...aliens were one thing. Those monsters were another. If this keeps them away from Lilo--”

“It will. Away from this entire world.” I assure her. She sighs, smiling so gently at me. 

“You really have been through this with someone.” She says. I giggle, setting a hand on my hip.

“I wasn’t lying to you.” Well, I kind of was. Because Kairi did die, but she is also back now. And lightyears away. Even more distant in heart. “There’s a lot of people...a lot of my friends aren’t happy with me, because they fell into this when they were kids. They think it's fine for children to carry the weight of everything. But I just can’t watch others fall into that pattern. It’s too much, even for an adult.”

“That’s for sure.” Nani nods. “Lilo’s already...unique enough. Without monsters chasing her home from school.”

“Hard to make friends when you’re a weirdly bright kid and adults look at you like you’ve got two heads cuz they don’t know how to soothe you through your parents dying.” I shrug. “I’m an orphan too.”

“What happened?” She asks.

“They were pilots. They got lost in space.” I tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “I was way too young to really remember them, but it didn’t change the fact that the whole town knew and had no idea how to treat me. What about you?”

“They were out for a drive, there was a storm.” Nani shakes her head, mouth twisting. “Lilo’s convinced if she feeds some fish a sandwich the weather won’t get that bad anymore and other people will be safe.”

This poor fucking child with a hero complex. This poor woman, forced to raise her. I reach out and touch her arm, unsurprised when her bronze skin feels warm like the sun. 

“It looks like you’re doing a hella good job.” I offer and she laughs, this unsure little sound that hits right where it hurts.

“Sounds like you are too.” She tells me. “I guess it’s just about trying.”

“And stomaching how damn thankless it all is.” I offer her a sideways look and she laughs. 

“It’s not always so bad.” She insists, looking to where Lilo is scampering forward, pulling the fancy haired man, David, along with all of her might, Stitch at her side.

“Sorry, the lines were super long.” David’s brow puckers, but Nani just shrugs.

“No worries. We’re heading home. Things are about to get weird though, so if you don’t want to come along, that’s fine.” She assures him, but David hardly looks phased.

“Weird is fine.” But he says it like ‘you shouldn’t have to be alone through this’. My eyes find Ludor and despite his silence through this endeavor, I’m thankful that I don’t feel so alone either, that there’s someone willing to eat my suffering just a little, no matter how bad it tastes. I wonder when it will be too much for him to stomach. It’s too much for anyone to stomach, but for now my body feels a little lighter, my heart seems a little less murky. 

And so they lead us, Lilo and Stitch leaps and bounds ahead, Nani and David, conversing with knit heads, in hushed tones, and me and Ludor following behind, my arms linked behind my back, his hands jammed in his pockets like he doesn’t trust them.

“Thank you. For coming.” I bite my lip. “This would be a disaster without you.”

“Hardly.” He waves a hand. “You’re the one who…” Was way too candid with a stranger, who confessed to actual ache to someone besides Lea for the first time ever? “Well, your experiences won her over, truth be told, I think we’ve missed a lot of growth with one another. The Rueki I recall had a lot less tact.”

“She had a lot more fire in her veins though.” My mouth twists.

“Being angry isn’t a marker for being your best, love.” He reminds me.

“We were shitty Nobodies.” I say once more and he chuckles.

“I’d hardly expect much of someone pushed to their limits.” He allows and my insides warm just a little.

“I missed you.” I say. “I missed this. A lot more than I thought. Having someone intelligent to just...talk to.”

“Axel is hardly what I’d call incompetent. Saix either.” He says and I snort out the smallest of laughs.

“And I wasn’t cordial with Isa. I mean I was, but only for Lea. And Lea… I don’t know. Maybe it was my fault, but he acted like my life needed a solution. I know I put him in a position where he felt like he had to fix me, but he’s always been hungry for instant gratification. He’s amazing, but I think it’s important to have a damn good friend that I can just shoot the shit with.”

“You know it’s…” He struggles, brow knitting together, trying to conjure words like magic. Then, he shakes his head and gives up altogether and I’m not stoked, but I also know the limits and realize I’ve pushed his. 

“Sorry. So how do I extract the light?” I ask and he chuckles, snapping back to reality with ease.

“Well you did collapse Wonderland, did you not? It’s much in the same, you must sense the light in her heart, feel it manifest, and instead of injecting darkness, you’ll just draw the light out. You’re more than adept at feeling the difference between the two, that much is noticeable.” He explains, and though it does sound easy, I feel like it might just sound a little too easy.

“What about her natural light? She can’t turn out like Vanitas cuz I strip her of too much.” I explain.

“And that will take some finesse.” He agrees. “Hearts hang in balance, though. A perfect blend of light and dark, something in true twilight. The moment you sense that serenity, you’ll have to stop. But as I’ve said, you’ve already proved yourself more than sensitive to the subtleties of light and dark, Rueki, love, you mustn't overthink such an activity.”

“Can’t you just do it?” I ask.

“Is this not your mission?” He teases, I roll my eyes. 

“Fine. If I fuck up it’s your job to murder me so I don’t need to deal with the conscequence of my own actions.” To Ludor’s credit, he actually laughs, like my self deprecation is funny and I don’t feel so gross for ruminating in it.

Even more to his credit, he’s right about my sensitivity, he’s right about the amount of trust to put into me, he gambles so perfectly, toying with fate like a second nature. I can feel the exact amount of light within Lilo, I feel the way I pull it out, I can sense when it becomes something tangible, I know what she naturally contains and doesn’t, it’s not hard to restore her heart to a proper state. What is hard is looking down at my Keyblade, glistening with light, and not injecting it straight into my own heart.

It would feel so good. So fucking pure, I remember the instant calm that washed over me when Xigbar shot what was obviously light magic into me in the Keyblade Graveyard, and I doubt that was a dose half this strong. His corrupted light can’t taste nearly as good as this source. How would it feel to forgive Lea and Xigbar in one go, what would peace taste like in my heart, how grand could it be for all of the ache to wash away, to truly forgive and forget and let anger wash off of me as though it is water and I’m coated in oil?

A hand on my shoulder jars me. Ludor looks at me and I manage to stop gazing at my glistening Keyblade in wonder, for at least a second. 

“We must return this to the heart of the world, but thank all of you. Truly, this will be to your benefit.” Ludor tells them. Lilo’s face scrunches up.

“You’re leaving just like that?” She pouts.

“He’s right, we really do need to get this light back to the world.” Or I’m going to shove it straight into my own heart, and my counterpart knows that. 

“But we could go surfing later, have you ever been, it’s so much fun!” Lilo insists.

“Of course.” Ludor replies breezily. I look at him, eyebrow raised.

“When have you gone surfing?” I ask.

“You believe you were the only one who had adventures in our time with the Organization?” He chuckles. I roll my eyes. 

“I guess not.” I say. “Look, kid…” I trail off. But then I think look what? Look, I have plans to get a damn world tour from Xigbar? Fat fucking chance. I have plans to cry and stare at my phone? Sounds equally shitty. The only thing that Daybreak Town could have in store for me now is maybe some quality time with Emyd, who would probably love to be here and would probably be a better surfer than any of the rest of us, but without a means of contact, or even a way to know if he’s returned to the castle after his mission, it’s not worth the risk. Not when he is probably so content to play his sitar--which he has to have, I can’t visualize a world where he joined this cause without toting it along. There’s no look, there’s no excuse. 

“You could come along, you know.” Nani insists. “We wouldn’t mind. The beach should be clearer in the early evening. We’d have it more to ourselves, and it would be nice to have an extra set of eyes on these two trouble makers.” She sets a hand on her hip, looking pointedly at Lilo and Stitch.

“Yeah, you know what, screw it. I’m down, you?” I look to Ludor, who just looks kind of baffled, but not unamused. 

“I think that sounds like an extraordinary way to spend the evening.” He agrees.

\--

Ludor is golden brown by time we get home and I feel a blistering sunburn settle in, what a fucking treat. Carding a hand through my soaking, salty hair, we laugh, making our way down the hall to our rooms, settling into how hilarious it was to see me fall off a surfboard, only to give David a mild heart attack by planting my feet onto the waves, riding them with only a simple Water spell needed for control. Lilo delighted in the extreme, to the way I pointed my fingers and laid down shards of ice, leaping from one to another as the warm, turquoise waters melted my magic away. 

Pleasure for the sake of pleasure was once something I tried to pursue, somewhere along the line, I know survival won out, but fuck did I miss having fun, listening to someone clap at my displays of magic, feeling at home when the ocean kissed my toes and the sun seared into my shoulders. 

“Not that Daybreak Town isn’t a delight, but we should do that again.” I ring out my hair, letting it drip straight to the floor without care. Ludor chuckles, offering me a smile worth its weight in gold. 

“Daybreak Town is different. It has its charms.” He shrugs, though he hardly seems enthused by it. I guess I can understand, when he’s lived so much, seen so much, done so much, coming home to a boatload of none of his friends has to feel empty.

“What was Ephemer like?” I ask, eyes flicking up to him. “That was his name, wasn’t it? You miss him, right?” I ask. He opens his mouth, struggling with a response, but when he looks up, I watch his guard fall perfectly into place.

“Another time, love.” He nearly growls, and my gaze snaps upward to where his eyes fall, to where Xigbar stands, arms crossed to his chest, leaning against my door frame. “My room is available to you, always.” He assures me, touching my arm.

“I appreciate it. But I’ve got this.” And I’ve made my bed, the last thing I’m going to do is let my friend warm it while I’m smothered night after night by my mistakes. I can avoid Xigbar, but not indefinitely. I know very well how crafty the fucking bastard is. So, just to make a show of how unafraid of him or this, I am, I retrieve my key from my pocket and stride forward, chin high, shoulders back, heels first, eyes straight on my door. I’ve got the key in the lock before he even clears his throat, and when he does, I just meet him with a raised eyebrow. “Have an issue?” I question, dryly.

“I dunno, is someone ignoring me?” He asks. I laugh wickedly, rolling my eyes as I unlatch my door.

“I’m not talking to you, if that’s what you’re wondering.” I tut.

“And you don’t think that’s the slightest bit immature?” He asks. A smirk curls across my lips as my gaze flicks up to him.

“Oh, I know it is. I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck.” I click out, emphasizing each beat in each syllable. 

“What do you want me to say, you can’t blame me for not wanting you to know about the soulmates thing.” He huffs, rolling his visible eye as he pushes himself up off my door frame. 

“I can and I do.” I counter, lips pressing together. I toss the door open, shoot him a snide look and swing my wet hair over my shoulder, smacking him in the face with it.

He doesn’t even have chance to spit the remnants of saltwater out before I slam the door on him.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there kids and happy mothers day to all of my mama readers!  
I'm excited to share this chapter with you and feel like it's worth mentioning that two of the characters we will see in this fic are from FF7. Reno in particular, it's worth mentioning, was the character that inspired Axel. Allegedly Nomura wanted to see how a Reno-like character would act in a different environment so not only do the two have similar looks and mannerisms, Quinton Flynn has voiced the two at some point.  
Anyhow, I'm really excited because I've got a few new projects coming soon, one in the Rueki verse, the other still in KH but it'll be Axel/reader. I wanted to do something in a modern setting that's still got plenty of drama, but doesn't get as heavy as this story has. I'm thinking we'll see both of those premier this month!

XXIV.

My restless hands can’t stop fussing with the fabric of my nightgown, my eyes haven’t left the ceiling in hours. How can a fucking bed possibly be so frigid? And could this weight find anywhere to hang out besides right on top of my chest, pushing me impossibly deep into the mattress? 

Does the mark on my hip burn or am I just imagining it, is this all just some sort of dysphoric placebo?

I shouldn’t have pulled out my phone in the wee hours of the night. There’s a lot more that I shouldn’t have done, but I especially should not have scrolled through old pictures of Lea, I should not have looked over the sexy photos I took of him before the last war, I shouldn’t have read through the sweet messages he sent me when I was working at Amaya’s shop. I shouldn’t have drawn some impossibly deep breath, gasping with urgency when I saw that I had an unread message from him. I should’ve put the fucking phone away.

But instead, I’m met by a novel of a text from him.

‘I’ve been thinking lately about the letters I wrote you last time we were apart, the last time you hated me this much and how if I had showed them to you sooner something could’ve been different. I guess you don’t need to say anything, but I think I want you to know how shitty I feel without you. If you wanna keep punishing me, that’s on you, but whatever you think I felt about someone else, or however much you think I didn’t want you, you’re wrong. I do want you. I want you home so bad it fucking hurts, Rueks. I miss your face and the smell of your hair and the way the rise of your scars feels when I touch your skin. I feel like we’ve spent the past few months darting in and out and away from each other and that breaks my damn heart. I can’t sleep without you, I guess what I want to say is that I want this to work so bad. I need this to work, if you could just come home or call me and let me know you’re fucking alive, if I could just hear your voice, I think we can figure this out. I think that with you I can do anything and I’m so sorry you didn’t feel like I lifted you up too, because that’s all I ever wanted, was for you and I to be above whatever was happening around us. I don’t know where I went wrong, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to get you to come back home, but whatever it is, whatever you need, just tell me and it’s yours. Please, sweetheart. This fucking sucks.’ 

This fucking sucks could be the understatement of a lifetime, but for who? For me? For him? For our joint souls that can’t function with or without each other? Does he want me or does he just not know how to function without me, because it’s different and I don’t want to be needed like a crutch, I want to be wanted, I think. I hope. I do know that I want to be chosen, and if he’s choosing me because some sort of force he doesn’t understand is tugging him back to me, whether he wants to be or not, that’s not fair to either of us. No wonder we were both thrust down different paths. We’re different people, we’re not made to jam things into place regardless of our feelings and if it weren’t for stupid, make believe, pretend--and all too real--things like souls, maybe we could have sorted through things. Maybe we could’ve talked because we wanted to, not just when we were too stubborn to give up or give each other away. 

Is loving and leaving each other the cycle we’re bound to? Is there an answer to it with something so rare? And more to the point, will anyone even give me the correct answer, or will Xigbar just see this as his means to an end to put more useless shit in my head? Am I even fucking mad at him or am I mad at myself for glamorizingsomeone I knew was kind of a slimy asshole?

I don’t trust my heart, I don’t trust my gut, I haven’t trusted my mind in a long enough time, and now I’ve walked away from anyone that could guide me, mostly because they were throwing me into hallways that closed in around me, but fuck, it would be nice to have a hand to hold that I didn’t feel guilty for grasping. 

A knock raps at my door, my eyes narrow.

“Go away, Xigbar!” I bark. Not that his is a hand I wouldn’t hold, but I am raw and reeling and have no idea how to convey any of that to him.

Thankfully, it’s a different cloaked figure that comes traipsing into my room, and I know this because of the box he totes beneath his arm. 

“I’m not really in the mood for board games.” I grumble, contemplating turning away as he sets the box down on the edge of the bed. 

“Sure you are.” The Master counters with the wave of his hand. “Distracted, miserable, not even giving yourself a chance to be high off of your first victory. What better time to have some fun?”

“This isn’t fun.” I grumble.

“Yes it is.” He decides for me, sitting at the edge of the bed, unpacking the chess set. Unflappable douche. “You’re going to end up giving in and playing.”

“Have you foreseen that?” I roll my eyes.

“Please.” He chuckles, softly. “I’ve just observed you long enough.”

“Hasn’t fucking everyone?” I snark. He falters a little bit, hands lingering over a piece just a little too long to be purposeful, I don’t sit up. 

“You could stand to not give Luxu the third degree.” He says. Okay, yeah, I’m over this conversation.

“Fuck him. And fuck you trying to come in and play matchmaker at the crack of fucking dawn.” I snap, crossing my arms tightly to my chest, turning my head aside. 

“I’m just saying. He’s flawed.” The Master says, but he says it with the smug, self assured aura implying that I should understand flaws because I have them, and he doesn’t.

“I’m not having this conversation, I have Princesses to sweet talk.” I huff, pushing myself up

“No you don’t, not today.” The Master says, leaving me scoffing. “Timing, sugar. Your friends are in Shibuya, good luck getting a moment with Queen Rapunzel this close to her birthday festival, neither of our ladies in Arendelle are feeling particularly receptive and unless you suddenly have found yourself an expert Wayfinder, there’s no way you’re going to be able to find Moana. And yes, that was some genuine omniscience.” He tells me, pride dripping off of his words. 

“So what, I sit around and suck my thumb while I wait for the stars to line up just so?” I roll my eyes.

“Nah, I have a mission for you.” He shakes his head, making the first move. My eyes narrow at him, my mouth curls into a pout, but exactly as he said I would, I make a counter move. Mostly to get him the fuck out of my room. I do hate being out stubborned.

“You want me to do more than just bat my eyes at Princesses?” I lift an eyebrow as he makes a move.

“Mmmhmm. One of the worlds we showed you guys in the data has been experimenting with alternative energy for a while. I just want a bit of information.” He says, as though it’s just a simple bit of recon. I’m not so stupid.

“Get it yourself.” I huff.

“Can’t. Why do you think we’ve got you Union Leaders on the heavy stuff, we can’t influence the timeline too heavily. That’s why Luxu spent the past millenia observing, that’s how I wound up in Shibuya, I manipulated too many pieces. It’s gotta be you, gotta be a human.” He shakes his head, though at me or at the move I make, I don’t know. I’m not sure it matters.

“If it was that first world we went to, I’m not doing it, that place fucked me up.” I say, flatly.

“Because you literally looked at the darkness and jumped right in.” He laughs. “I don’t know much about training Jedi, but you’d be one interesting Padewan, that’s for sure. Still, that was a hell of a display of Force.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I grumble while he makes a move. Seriously, when will anyone understand how much I hate the bullshit riddles?

“It’s the third world, the industrial one. Their city is powered by the world’s lifesource. I can tell you exactly where to find the information and exactly what it is you’re looking for. Elrena’s already agreed to it, it shouldn’t be tricky for the two of you, but you’ll need to be quick.The Shinra Corporation has some hellish security, if you can avoid going up against them, you’ll probably come out unscathed altogether.” 

“And you’ll be rich in knowledge.” I say, bitterly. “Doesn’t do a whole lot for me and it doesn’t make me hate this setup any less.” I snap, making a move. He takes my pawn, I roll my eyes.

“Are you even trying?” He teases.

“I’m not fighting foresight.” I snap back.

“Come on, you don’t even know the extent of how that works.” He waves a hand. 

“Nope.” I agree, popping my lips. “Remember, people don’t tell me shit, but it’s all forgiven as long as they don’t explicitly lie to me.”

“Okay, okay, so he could have been more candid with you. Do you blame him?” The Master sighs, waiting on my stubborn ass to make a move.

“Yes.” I say, quickly. “I blame him a lot. You want some fated, prophesied hero to do your bidding, then you have to tell me everything. That’s how this is going to work, not me letting you lead me through the dark on a string. Not me letting him guide me around blindfolded, that’s not who I’m going to be ever again.”

“Right, and you’re writing your own destiny now.” He says it though, like it’s something cute that children do, like writing a story about unicorns and mermaids and puppies. I squeeze a hand around my upper arm. “You are someone else’s soulmate. I gave you part of Luxu’s heart, he’s got part of yours, it should have been a perfect setup, but no matter what I do, I can’t account for the soul. Those things are fickle and flighty and not even nailed into destiny, not like a heart.” He shakes his head.

“And why the fuck would you think that’s okay to do to anyone?” I ask, face contorting.

“What happened to Luxu wasn’t fair, waiting an eternity for someone who has very concrete ties to someone else? Do you think it was fair to me, leaping from one reality to the next, trying to find a way to stop darkness, only to lose myself in the end?” He asks. “Life is a series of slights and how you handle them, Rueki.” He nods to the chess board, my eyes narrow. “You know, you do talk a big game about cynicism, but try as you may, you can’t snuff out that naive optimism, can you?” 

“I think the world should be just, so sue me.” I snap, but he just chuckles, so breezily, that in a play to just end this damn conversation, I make a move.

“Life isn’t alchemy, sugar. It’s not such an easy equation, input doesn’t always equal results.” He reminds me while making a move, as though I actually need it. It doesn’t dull the chill that spreads in my chest, through my veins to my arms and hands. “Ava had a hard time with that, too.”

“Where is she?” I ask. 

“Hopefully, doing her job.” He says, which doesn’t explain much of anything. “She’s supposed to bring us the light we’ll need to complete the seal, that you’ll need. We’ve got six worlds, plus this one that need to be sealed off with light, we’ve got thirteen we’ll banish to darkness, but that won’t be enough without the original source of light itself. Something older than time, something older than, well me. It is the source of my creation and the only thing that will guarantee that darkness doesn’t seep in again. You’ll have to bind it to our realm. Ava is supposed to be providing that light. It looked like it was supposed to be a higher cost situation too, but now, it should be nearly painless. No one gets hurt, nothing goes wrong.”

“So what’s the hang up?” Though there’s something about the slick way this man talks that has me doubting any and everything he says. 

“Rebellion.” He explains, unhelpfully as I make a move and he captures my rook. Fucker.

“Xigbar said she had issues with the fact that a lot of people would have to die to make this possible.” I say. He nods and I make another move, opening the floor for him to capture my other rook, but I quickly knock his queen right off the board.

“Huh…” He clicks his tongue and nods, looking over the board. “You didn’t plan that.”

“Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.” I smirk, feeling only a fraction of a percentage better, but it’s something.

“It’s always better to be lucky than good, sugar. Why do you think Ludor was necessary for this? The man has an uncanny way about how he manipulates fate.” He ponders, over the board. “No matter what eventuality I could possibly plan for, he came out, stronger, more resistant, more determined. If you could’ve seen him as a kid it was so different, he wasn’t even on the docket to be a Union Leader. Maybe he should’ve been.” 

“He’s good at guessing.” I agree.

“There’s something more.” The Master says, finally making a move. “I’d really like to figure out what it is, I’d give him almost anything for a hint.” I do notice how pointedly he says almost and how little Ludor seemed interested in any ‘prize’ the Master might have for him. Why am I not surprised that the Gambler of Fate has bigger wants than even a superhuman could grant? 

“Maybe not everything is so easy to figure out. This realm is screwed up, random happenstance exists.” I insist. He laughs louder this time, so I huff and take a rook from him.

“Oh, sugar, not with how I plan. Why would I leave a single thing to chance when I can have exactly what I want, whenever I want it?” He asks me. “Are we so very different on that front?”

We are painfully not. To have a hand on Lea and Xigbar’s plans in my ear and my own abilities unleashed and changing the world around me? It sounds a hell of a lot more like a hallucination than any type of reality, but oh how I wouldn’t mind. No matter what I had to do, no matter how I had to line it up.

“To answer your question, Ava is exactly where I want her to be, but whether or not she delivers is still on her. Hope is a tricky thing. You can’t manipulate it or alter it. You can’t shatter its foundation, and Ava is nothing if not hopeful. Until that faith shatters, she’s gonna be a tricky one. But that hope, that faith is what makes the both of you so important. You want to know the whole of it, that’s why it had to be you, Rueki. Your belief in equivalence is so...not pure...but stubborn. You won’t stand to see a world where good deeds can’t pay off. Ava is the same way. Right now she thinks that keeping the light safe means guarding it with her own hands, and not using it to keep the realm safe.” He explains. 

“And what if she doesn’t change her mind?” I ask. His hands hesitate a little as he moves a piece. 

“Check.” He announces, so I squint and move my king out of the way. “Things get difficult. It’s not something I haven’t planned for, you might just need to be a little hands on in pulling the light out of her source.”

“It has to be me?” I ask.

“Not necessarily, extraction is simple, something just tells me you’ve got a better handle on finesse than the others. Which is saying a lot, because your tact is pretty trash.” I can hear the grin in his voice. 

“Cool, thanks.” I snark, rolling my eyes as he makes another move.

“Check.” He says. I hiss. 

“You said Ava’s source is the light that created you?” I ask. “How the hell did you guys get your hands on it?”

“Well, the source itself is basically my parent. Took a little work, a little something almost like you sealing your friend in replicas, but when I saw the light was in danger, I sealed it away.I couldn’t let the very source of my creation perish all because the darkness was hungry. Of course, the darkness found a vessel of its own. But darkness is born to chase light, that’s all it wants is a taste of its own. And that, sugar, can be harnessed.” He explains. “Checkmate, by the way.”

Fucker.

“Look, I came to you about Midgar for a reason.” He tells me.

“About where?” I blink as he starts to pack away the pieces into the box.

“The world I want you and Elrena to go to. I need you in and out quick and you two are by a long shot, the speediest members of the group.” He reminds me.

“Have you seen Vanitas move?” I lift an eyebrow.

“Have you seen Vanitas effectively cut off destruction so that he can be efficient?” Good point. “I can’t twist your arm, but--”

“But you’ve already seen me leaving this world with Elrena.” I roll my eyes.

“There’s a girl.” He nods. Sealing up the box as I push myself out of bed. “Be ready for some hand to hand combat, things could get nasty if you get caught.” He warns me.

“Great, anything else?” I roll my eyes. 

“Yeah, this was on the floor when I came in.” The Master tucks the box beneath one arm and extends an envelope to me. I don’t even need to ask who it’s from. “Come on sugar, a little bit of cordiality doesn’t hurt.” 

I snatch the letter from his hand, smile hugely, cock my head to the side and light the fucking envelope on fire with the ever so playful snap of my fingers.

“Ouch.” The Master says.

“Tell Luxu I’m not in the mood.”

\--

I troll up the sleeves of my shirt, eyes narrowed, brows furrowed. The elevator dings as it closes with us inside. A keycard hangs half way out of Elrena’s pocket, my knuckles are covered in blood. Not my own this time, and she’s hardly in better shape, trying and failing to wipe it off her jeans.

“You know, I actually thought it was going to be harder than this.” She says, rolling her eyes as she gives up on her jeans.

“That’s why I always wear shorts.” I tell her. She blinks, looking at me like I grew an extra head. “And black. You’re never getting that out of fabric.”

“Doesn’t matter. The dresser’s stocked full, I could care less about the Master’s precious inventory.” And she’s made that quite clear, in the way she doesn’t even try to act subtly, beating down every suit, every soldier, every anyone who crosses our path on the way up, nearly seventy floors high. She doesn’t give a quarter of a fuck about his plans running smoothly, she’s a hired gun and a hell of one at that, I never expected to be standing on the same side of a pile of bodies as her, but hell if I’m not happy that I am. 

Lighting up an entire ground floor with enough electricity to power this world and then some? Kind of cool, if I’m being honest. Not that she’s reveling in the moment, she’s already returned to looking irritated that I’m even here in the first place. Or maybe irritated that she is. She was testier with the Master than I was, and twice as hostile, snatching up the mission plans from him. She didn’t even so much as have the courtesy to read them aloud, but rather skimmed them, tossed them at me, opened a portal of light and demanded I follow. After all, the Master said, it’s not in this realm, my ship couldn’t take us there, the only thing that can is light travel. Fuck this shit. 

“Maybe if you used your Keyblade you wouldn’t be covered in fucking blood all the time.” Elrena purses her lips and sets a hand on her hip, but I get the distinct impression that she considers this polite small talk and I’m being put to the test of entertaining her. 

“Give me an actual opponent and I’ll use my Keyblade.” I grin. She snorts.

“Bad boys with guns aren’t your idea of opponents?” She lifts an eyebrow.

“Are they yours?” I counter. She actually smirks a little.

“Touche.” She clicks her tongue. The elevator doors open up and, just like on the last floor, a batallion is there to greet us. “They never learn.”

And neither do I. I go sailing straight in, fist cranked back. My knuckles split on some poor bastard’s face. Another crumples to the ground when I slam a knee between his legs. Such fragile little men, they all are crumbling like toy soldiers. It looks like Elrena’s having just as good of luck. She’s only a few feet from me, springing onto her hands to smash one of these guards in the face with a well placed kick. She leaps to her feet, twisting in the air, to bash someone’s head into a wall. I blanche. There is a very good possibility that he’s not getting back up, ever. My stomach starts to knot, but Elrena’s yelp has me shoving it down. Some big, burly creature of a man has her arms pinned behind her back. She hisses, crackling with electricity. The man releases her, choking on his breath, she yanks him around but before she can even land a blow, I leap to her aid, call forward Backbiter and stab the man straight through his stomach.

He goes limp, I pull back my blade, Elrena releases him, letting him drop to the ground, choking and sputtering.

“I had it under control.” She says, I contemplate answering with ‘you’re welcome’, but think I like my head on my shoulders a little more. 

“I know.” I tell her as we climb back into the elevator, which dings once more as it closes. “You had my back though, with Xigbar. So, thank you.”

“We’re not doing this, we’re not friends.” She rolls her eyes. “I hate him more than I hate you is all.”

“Touching.” I roll my eyes.

“Not really. He’s a fucking pig, I hate very few people more than I hate him.” Way to ruin what could have been a friendly moment. “You haven’t crawled back to him yet, have you?” 

Way to have faith in me, dear fucking Twilight.

“Definitely not. I’m pretty sick of having things hidden from me. And then getting told to get over it when I’m pissed.” I lick my chapped lower lip.

“I wouldn’t call this pissed, I’ve seen you throw bigger tantrums than this.” She reminds me. It’s not altogether untrue, and I think that the little bit of familiarity that she brings could feel a lot worse. Even if she hasn’t fully retracted her claws. 

“He’s not worth the time to throw a tantrum.”

“Feels better if you do.” She tells me, drumming her fingernails against her arm. “Just saying, if you’re going to be miserable, an outlet at least keeps you from turning into a fucking emotional mess.”

“I’m not trying to be miserable, I’m trying to fix my shitty life.” I inform her. She snorts.

“Hate to break it to you, you’re going to be miserable without Axel.” She rolls her eyes. “Up to you how you channel that. If you don’t want to take my advice, I’m not even going to try.”

“How did you know what that mark on my hip meant?” I ask her and she whips around, eyes narrowed and electrifying as they meet mine.

“The next time you ask me that question is the last time you talk.” She barks. Well, I guess that answers that.

The elevator door bings open at our floor, and this time, we’re not met with any enemies. Just a straight shot to a big, ornate set of doors, at the far end of the massive ring this upper floor consists of. From the guard rail, we could easily peer down the rest of the building to assess what sort of threat we might have on our tail, but I don’t even get the option to start plotting with her. Elrena starts sprinting off toward the doors and I flinch.

“Where are you going?” I whisper shout at her, looking around the hall that we haven’t even searched. Am I the only one who thinks this floor is too quiet? I don’t need to see her face to know she’s rolling her eyes, because Elrena’s whole body rolls. She cocks her head back, pretty mouth pressed into a pout.

“To do our job.” She sets a hand on her hip. “And you are going to stay here and distract any assholes that try to stop me, do you think you’re capable of that?”

I think the concept of girl power is completely lost on someone who hates all of humanity. 

“If you could haul ass instead of taunting me, I wouldn’t need to play lookout.” I mutter as she disappears through the massive double doors, head high like she owns the place. I guess considering what we just plowed through, being alone in silence isn’t actually a challenge, but at what point do I go in after her and what would warrant her screaming at me if I followed because she was taking too long? Not that Larxene was ever pleasant but Elrena is a feral alleycat, I don’t know which way to turn with her, what will warrant her shrieking at me, teeth bared and what will grant me another moment semi pleasant, albeit slightly hostile small talk, like we had in the elevator.

I guess I can’t really fault her for being unstable, if there’s anyone who doesn’t love their new life in Daybreak Town more than me, it’s Elrena. I have a minimal amount of friends that I can only scratch the surface with, but what does she have? Probably very few memories until now, of her past and Elrena’s violent display during training was flat out confirmation that somewhere on her body, at some point in time, someone marked her as their soulmate. If she had no idea who they were or why she felt this screaming where a strange, thumbprint shaped scar lingered, or an understanding of the desperate ache inside of her, the emptiness of feeling so very halved and so blind, like no wonder she had the attitude from hell. And if she remembers who that person is now, and is coming to terms with the fact that she wasted so much time at Marluxia’s heels --when based on the way she’s swatted him aside recently, he is surely not her soulmate-- she’s gotta be pissed at herself and him, and whoever her would be other half is and…

And probably me for being stupid enough to walk away from Lea.

“Something tells me you ain’t here for the director’s birthday.”

The voice has my heart sputtering, forgetting how to beat.

No. No, no, no. 

He swaggers so confident, so playfully. He’s got the same fair skin, the same unruly red hair, the same wicked look on his face, the same delicious albeit slim build. If it weren’t for the fact that his eyes are certainly blue and that he’s got red tattoos beneath them, I truly could believe that Lea was sauntering toward me in a well cut suit with the top buttons undone and a pair of goggles perched atop his head.

“Fuck me.” Oh, how I wish there was something more clever I could spit out but--

But he pulls out some sort of baton thing and taps it against his bony shoulders, simultaneously drumming long, slender fingers, clad in fingerless gloves, against said baton. And I just--

I just remember Oz and watching Axel turn into some sort of assassin. I remember him leaning over to taunt me in the pouring rain. I think of the way he so carelessly shrugged me off so I held on tight to spite him. Goddamn. This man’s got that same deadly appeal that I want so bad to sink my teeth into. Not unlike--

Nope, I’m mad at him, I’m not going there.

“Sorry sweetness, don’t got time for that.” He moves at me so fast that even if I weren’t dazed, I would still have taken the crackling rod straight to the face.

“Shit!” I curse, but with concentration snapping back, I shove the volts straight back into his rod and he chokes, staggering back, dropping the thing to the ground. I scramble back too, calling Backbiter to my hands, heart hammering as I watch him watch me, pupils dilated, shoulders heaving. He contemplates me the same way one might contemplate a wild animal running through town, wreaking havoc.

“That’s a fun little trick you’ve got there.” He clears his throat, and fuck if he doesn’t sound exactly like Lea and mimic his mannerisms as he picks his rod back up. This has to be a fucking nightmare. This is the Master punishing me for being a cunt to Xigbar. This is…

This is something surreal.

“Sure.” I pant. “If you’re easily baffled.”

He chuckles, smirk pulling across his angular features.

“Oh, so you’re an asshole.” He accuses, though it rolls off his tongue like a child teasing another for having ugly shoes, there’s no weight to it. 

As quick as he came barreling the first time, he flies forward again, leaving me with only the opportunity to dodge his every attempt to throttle me. Bob, weave, jump, dodge, leap up, land one foot on his baton and spring up and over his head. I tumble to the ground, tucking and rolling, whipping my Keyblade out to deflect a quickly recovered attack from him. 

His baton sparks, voltage crackling behind me and though I should hate this, I certainly don’t.

This doesn’t feel dangerous, this feels like sparring in Oblivion with Axel, feels like fighting the massive Heartless in Motunui. This is...fucking electric. My skin’s tingling for a very wrong reason.

He jams his baton into my back, and in retaliation I choke on a yelp and kick him straight in the ribs. 

He grunts, bracing himself on one knee as I roll onto my back, arching it trying to relieve some of the miserable pins and needles feeling tapdancing down my spine.

“You probably should’ve warned me that you’re an asshole too.” I groan, pushing myself up onto my elbows as I see him rising. “Treat a lady with some respect, man.” I whine.

“Yo, that’s sexist.” He insists. “I do it for you, gotta extend the courtesy to all your little Avalanche pals and that just wasn’t in the job description.”

“Who?” 

He leaps so I zing back my Keyblae and hiss out,

“Waterga!” Although he misses the blade, narrowly, he doesn’t miss the tidal wave forming on it, and he certainly notices the way it kills the buzz on his rod instantaneously. 

“Shit!” He snarls tumbling back. With a quick breath and some artful rocking of his heels, he rights himself and snaps his rod against his thigh, trying to reignite it.

“Good luck with that.” I huff, pushing myself the rest of the way up and onto my feet. He smacks the rod again and it starts to crackle once more, which pushes a scowl onto my face. 

“Nice materia. Who’dja steal that from?” He taunts. 

“Your boss.” Because I love the way this beautiful stranger pulsates with a spark tangible enough to rival mine. He hums in contemplation.

“Damn.” I watch the way his tongue curls as he holds onto the word, arousal gripping me just as tight as adrenaline. He takes these long, slow steps toward me, swinging his baton at his side, the spark, effectively turned off, his head cocked to the side. “You aren’t Avalanche, are you?” He speculates, closing the distance between us until he can hold the tip of his baton just below my chin and tilt my head up.

Our eyes lock.

This is...new.

It’s because he looks and sounds and acts remarkably like my husband, I tell myself. It’s because I miss when fire would ignite against my skin and I heard that damn voice growling in my ear. It’s cuz excitement pounds in my temples and all of my nerve endings are still buzzing with the feeling of him jamming that electric rod into my back. 

“Sure not.” I bite my lip, watching the grin pull further across his face.

“Huh. Fucking shame then. You still chose a shitty side.” He tells me, baton tracing my jawline, and I think none of this is a shame. Not when I could close my eyes and listen to him taunt me and just convince myself that I’m home. What a wicked man I fell in love with, what a delightfully tainted time we could go back to, backed up against the bookshelf in the library, hatefucking in his room after days of being ignored. Take me back, give me the simplicity and the very basic pleasure of being bound to his side without any choices. Bring me home to--

‘Please sweetheart. This fucking sucks.’

It does, and and I don’t want the time we’re having now, I just want to sizzle like I did back then.

“A shame indeed.” I breathe, palming his baton just to shove it away. It buzzes, but I’m prepared and shove the charge back into the device. “Bet you’re a real monster. This could've been hella fun.”

“Maybe you should catch me off duty.” He chuckles. “You know, if you happen to forgive me for sending my partner to kill your girlfriend.”

Fuck! Elrena!

And as though she can sense my thoughts on her name, I hear a thunderstorm crackle and shatter everything behind the double doors. The gorgeous stranger twists with me to watch Elrena barrel out of the room, an envelope in one hand, her sparking Keyblade in the other.

“Fuck.” The redhead hisses. “Rude?” He calls out, just as a bald man staggers out behind my counterpart, whose eyes go huge when she sees who I’m standing off against.

We’re not friends. We haven’t mastered wordless communication. But I know she knows the way I’m looking at the man holding a weapon to me, and I watch something behind her eyes soften, just momentarily, the weakness more prominent in the turquoise than it was in the gold. But Elrena shakes herself back to reality quicker than I’m capable off and glares at me, taking off down the hall behind me.

“Stop flirting!” She barks at me.

“Fuck you!” I call after her, offering the man in front of me a shrug that seems to stagger him a bit. “Guess I can forgive you, what with you not killing my girlfriend and all. Another time.” And with that, I book it after her, hearing him scoff behind me.

“Oh, I don’t think so!” He’s a force, and so is his partner, the two of them are right at my tail, not even breaking a sweat, so I do what I hate more than anything else in the world. I hold my breath, pinch my eyes shut and visualize myself a step beside Elrena.

There’s a noise behind the two of us, an obvious ‘what the fuck’ from the men pursuing us, and though I hardly trust the Master of Masters, he was right to throw me and Elrena into this. Now teleported, I keep pace so perfectly beside her, though my heart hammers and my face flushes and I--

“On three we jump over the ledge, they won’t follow us that way.” She tells me. My eyes go huge.

“What?”

“Three!” Where’s the one, two, bitch, I want to ask, but I don’t even have time to do more than yelp before Elrena hoists herself up onto a guard rail and throws herself down, plummeting toward the bottom of the, what nearly seventy stories we’ve traveled up? I turn to the men coming our way, lock eyes with the redhead and groan.

It could be Lea’s face, I tell myself. If Elrena is gonna kill me at least I can pretend I died looking at Lea. 

And so I push myself up, over the rail and tumble down, clapping a hand over my mouth to stiffle the scream as I fall, hair whipping out of my bun, into my face, arms shaking, knees buckling.

She’s gonna kill me, she’s gonna be the death of me, if I don’t make it out of--

My head smacks into lush grass, which doesn’t feel great. My head throbs, my vision blears, white and spotty but… But we’re back in Daybreak Town. And I’m not dead. And a portal made of pure light evaporates above my head. Laughter spills uncontrollably from my lips, my eyes flutter shut. 

“Fuck me.” I choke, punctured into two distinct syllables. 

“You’re an idiot.” Beside me, Elrena’s voice sounds off, I open my eyes, forehead crinkling as I lift my eyebrows. “You know he wasn’t Axel.”

My stomach curdles.

“Yeah.” I lick my lips. 

“You were toying with him, if he’s as half cocked as his partner, you could’ve broken his hand and not been making eyes at him by time I got this.” She waves the envelope at me. To be honest, she’s probably right, and because of nothing more than the blood, sweat and tears I have jammed into my magic and alchemy and speed. She glares at the envelope, looks down at me and extends a hand. I look at her palm the way someone might regard an outstretched knife, but am afraid if I wait too long, she might actually stab me. So quickly, I let her pull me up to my feet. Her face is pale, her mouth is a line as she looks me over. “You look so much like her.” She says abruptly, and now I lose color, wiping my hands down the front of my shorts.

“Lauriam’s sister, right?” I ask. She blinks, wildly. “Ven remembered Lauriam mentioning he was looking for her. Ven lived in Sora’s heart, so if he remembers it, I do too.” I explain.

“That’s so fucked.” She says. I scoff.

“More than you know. It’s basically my job to ear the darkness from anyone who used to live within Sora.” I say.

“So you’re a little bottom feeder, that makes remarkable sense.” She laughs, high and haughty and I feel my face burn. “Oh come on, if you’re going to be that sensitive, I can kick you back to the ground.” And I have no doubt she would.

“It’s just...different that you haven’t already done that.” I say. She shrugs, so oily, like I’m the one being dumb for voicing these thoughts.

“The thing is, your misery, it’s only really fun for me if I’m the one inflicting it.” She says. “And you’ve clearly proven yourself too stupid to stay sane on your own time, so I’ll do the hard work for you, if you let me kick the shit out of you from time to time.”

I don’t speak fluent Elrena, but I’m almost certain she’s offering to have my back if I become her venting buddy?

“And I mean, pretty much only Ludor and Emyd like you, and that’s only cuz Ludor is obviously stupid and in love with you. Xigbar probably still wants to get into your pants and the Master clearly is too egotistical to envision a world where you won’t succeed, but it’s not like the other Foreteller like you, beggars really can’t be choosers.” She reminds me, crossing my arms to my chest. My eyes widen. What the actual fuck?

“Um, yeah, uh I agree. I’m the worst, I’ll take you up on that offer.” I nod, acting quick before said offer expires and she does actually kick me to the ground.

“Good.” She says flatly. “Apparently you do have one brain cell left.” She tucks the envelope under her arm and heads toward the castle before pausing and rocking back on her heel. Her face is soft as she turns to me, I’m almost expecting something gentle. I get quite the opposite. “By the way, you ever redirect my own lightning at me again, and I’ll peel your skin off with my bare hands.”

Duly noted.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys and welcome to another chapter! I'm pleased to announce that 'Tempest', a series of chapters that could offer a bit of unique perspective from Axel's point of view will be debuting on Friday, May 22nd and updating on Fridays from then on out! It's been hellishly fun to write, I hope you guys enjoy it, and a chance to get out of Rueki's head as much as I do!

XXV.

“Why are we here again?” Elrena grumbles, rolling her eyes and propping her chin up on her knees with her elbow. She’s not sitting next to me, and I still feel on painfully shaky ground after yesterday’s weird interaction with her, so I opt not to voice that I’m wondering the same thing. Even though I am, very loudly. 

“Elrena.” Lauriam huffs, facade crumbling a little bit as he regards the woman he took a seat beside, on a detailed, porcelain bench. She scoots further from him, eyes narrowed into slits. “Perhaps some tact?” He suggests. She just snorts.

“She’s got a point.” I finally confess, she holds her head a little higher. What a weird fucking relationship I’m traipsing into. “I thought we had jobs to do and now none of us are doing any of them.”

I didn’t go high tailing after Princesses yesterday, whatever, Elrena and I had a job to do that required some agility, but I’m not entirely sure why every single one of us has been pulled from our rooms at this world’s ungodly early actual ‘daybreak’. I rub my bleary eyes, trying to concentrate on how they sting and how my head still hurts from crashing into the dirt yesterday and how bad I really need to figure out light travel. Fuck, here we go. The downward spiral that kept me up through the night. 

I hate that I’m stuck relying on anyone for travel when I’m the one that should be getting stronger and learning how to protect my friends.

I hate Xigbar’s visible eye, trained to me like a scope, expecting, demanding, wanting. 

I hate that there’s a part of my tired brain that wants to look up because he’s the only regulated thing I can settle into. The only person I actually feel like I know to the core. Funny, considering just yesterday I was making remarks about him knowing me all the better, like it was wrong, like it was voyeuristic of him to observe me. Fuck me for unintentionally doing the same thing, I guess.

But would meeting his eye really be worse than playing on my phone again, reading and rereading Lea’s sweet message, thinking I could absorb some of the sweetness and convert it to assurance. To be honest, his kindness only makes me less secure.

I had been so fixated on flexing my abilities to their limits when I felt like my friends were holding me back, but where am I now, what am I doing now? Going on cake missions to sweet talk Princesses? Going breathless over beautiful strangers in odd worlds, just defaulting to the realization that I want to be held, instead of actually utilizing these abilities. The gloves are still so thoroughly on, and I think it’s my fault, but the ease of my labor and this random stupid meeting doesn’t make me feel less restless. 

Still, I can tell I’m not the only one here that’s a little too antsy. Vanitas is picking at the fraying of his jeans, Elrena is hyper focused on her cuticles. Maybe I should’ve just got up and sat by her, or maybe I’d get punched if I did. Something tells me I’ll never be able to predict that. And at that thought I’m back to being fussy and annoyed.

“An excellent observation.” The Master claps his hands together, sitting with one leg folded the other on an ornate bench, not unlike the ones the rest of us are on. “Ira, you wanna take this one?”

“Uh…” Ira seems to be struggling with this question, but not the same way that Gula struggled with words the other day, Ira just genuinely doesn’t seem to know how to handle having this many sets of eyes on him.

“You’ve all gone to at least one world with latent mgic, you’ve all had the chance to test new abilities or at least you should have.” Aced barks, and I get the feeling he thinks this is how one normally is supposed to present themselves in an authoritative position. Fuck, it’s way too early for this. 

“That and…” Gula starts, tiny smile creeping onto his face. “None of you really like each other.”

“Figured some good old fashion smacking the shit out of each other might help get rid of some of this...whatever this is.” Xigbar waves a hand. I shoot him a nasty look as his eyes catch mine again, mostly because I feel like it’ll be a good use of energy. It isn’t.

It’s not like he’s inherently wrong. No one here is particularly equipped for cooperation, we play more like we’re in an entirely separate game, but I guess not all of us have had to stomach camaraderie for the sake of survival like I’ve done multiple times in Shibuya. 

“It always did for us.” Invi reminisces and Xigbar chuckles. 

“Sure did, do you remember some of the grapples Aced and Ira used to get into?” He asks.

“You don’t even remember the half of it, it was worse before you came along.” Invi insists.

“Especially worse. Do you remember when Ira wouldnn’t speak to Aced for weeks because--” Gula begins, but Ira clears his throat, loudly.

“This is hardly the time to be recanting this sort of tale.” Ira sputters, flustered. 

“Yes, you suggested this, Luxu, get a move on with it.” Aced snaps, the visible part of his face growing flushed from the base of his neck. Xigbar just chuckles, quite amused by Aced especially it seems. He curls to his feet,in a catlike manner, stretching his arms long and lean above his head. And I’m not watching him attentively because I’m intrigued, I tell myself. I’m doing it cuz I’m pissed at him and just want to get this the hell over with.

“Matches are one on one, let’s not kill each other, alright? This is fun. So have some damn fun and pull the sticks out of all of your asses. Remember, we’re all here for the same reason. The world sucks, we’re fixing it. So play nice.” Xigbar tells us.

“This isn’t unlike the matches we used to have amongst the Organization.” Ludor remarks.

“Yeah, who’s idea do you think that was? You think Xemnas was ever too keen on some good old fashion fun?” Xigbar cackles.

“Yeah, no.” Emyd mutters. 

“Vanitas.” Gula calls out to the boy who doesn’t even cast him a glance. “You’ve made remarkable progress this week, you can have the first match and your pick of opponent.”

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. What the fuck is it about me that makes the most voiltaile assholes I know hate me? I look up and Vanitas’ eyes are baring into mine. He stands, his Keyblade in his hands, a nasty smile distorting his already harsh features.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I huff, getting off my ass from where I sit between Emyd and Ludor.

“Scared, witch?” He taunts. I stride across the field, calling Backbiter into my hands. I roll my shoulders back, put on my game face. Okay, I think, I needed an excuse to hit something, here’s an excuse.

“Tired actually.” I reply boredly. This is apparently not the right response.

He flies at me, Keyblade knocked back, scream spilling straight from his feral mouth. That’s the first thing I want to hit, but the bastard is nothing if not devastatingly quick. The way he brutalizes is equal parts force and speed, it takes everything I have to leap up onto his blade just before it has time to tear open my abdomen. There’s a moment, a freeze frame where he acknowledges my being atop his blade and I wait, half expecting him to bite me. His lips curl over his teeth, he looks absolutely vampiric and I’m not hungry to be anyone’s next meal. 

With a yelp, I flip over, crouching down low. I whip Backbiter back and slash at his legs, but the little fucking monster knows how to move. He tumbles back, tripping over himself. So, while he staggers, I quickly etch in the dirt below us. He definitely sees what I’m doing because he leaps at me, grabs me by the hair and throws me right back into the earth.

“Fat chance, cunt!” He spits, so much venom that I wipe my face. If there was a part of me unenthusiastic about this fight before, it has completely been snuffed out at his word. I inhale sharply, forcing myself to think clearly.

Vanitas is good, but he’s pure rage, and I need to work that the same way everyone has worked me, the way everyone has twisted my emotions, especially in combat, and smacked me in the face with them. 

“Just drop fucking dead.” I grab his ankles and scorch, watching the way he dances away from me, howling and kicking to snuff out the flames I’ve ignited on his skin. And I get back to work. I finish the circle, shove the ingredients from my pocket into the circle and--

And shriek, because when I set my hands back on the circle, Vanitas stomps on one of them, shattering the bones as a Cluster Bomb explodes around us. We fly, the both of us choking on ash and dirt, my head throbs from the impact of smacking the ground, my poor fucking hand is vibrating. Goddamn stupid little prick doesn’t have the decency to stay down.

As if on cue, I hear him roaring, sounding more like a wounded dog than anything radiant, as he cuts through the ash, blade drawn back.

“Fuck!” I curse, struggling to my feet, despite my ringing head and screaming hand. I look at Backbiter, unjnured hand still wrapped around it, and drop the damn sword like it’s hot.This staggers Vanitas for just second, which is just long enough for me to take off, leaping, bounding and sprinting as far away from this fucking rat bastard as I can. 

He’s right on my tail and unlike Saix, a Remedy isn’t going drain him. I fumble aimlessly though my pocket with my good hand, muttering a slew of curses under my breath. Stupid little bastard can’t turn it off. Darkness knocks at my heart, his memories trickle in, each a repulsive reminder of the way this boy was trained. No, not trained, conditioned. He genuinely might not know the difference between sparring and fighting to the death.

Stupid me, asking the universe for a challenge. Frustration bubbles like a poison from my chest and all I want is to sink the venom into him. Into anyone that’s watching this fight, looking down on me.

My hand closes around a Potion at the same time Vanitas catches up to me. I slam the thing and he slams his Keyblade and with the first breath I take after knocking back the Potion, I scream “Reflega!”

It’s spat and breathless, but effective. A perfect barrier forms around me just in time for Vanitas’ Keyblade, and, in turn, it sends him screaming across the field, hatred tainting the gold of his eyes.

My pulse is pounding in my ears. Dear fucking Twilight, this boy is drowning in the tremors of his own violence as it pours down onto him. I can feel it, leaking into me, spreading through my veins, pushing me forward. Still growling, he pushes himself up to his feet and I call Backbiter back, gripping my Keyblade like a vice. 

“Dude, this is supposed to be fun.” I try, not because I think it will make a difference, but because of how remarkably he looks like Sora and how bad I feel his heart aching into mine. Do better, be better, be stronger, break this bitch, his heart urges, and I’m the one that has to hear it. How can anyone expect me to be better when I’m always the one that has to hear it. 

“You know what was fun? Breaking that stupid bitch that taught you these spells in the first place.” He snarls. M’kay, clearly all he’s tried with our link is pushing, because Aqua did not teach me this. She helped me, she was my friend, we understood each other for however brief a moment, but this was me. I’m the one who busted my ass and spent too long reading spell books, I’m the one who neglected sleep and favored magic, I’m the one that made myself and I’m the one that knocked him halfway across the field. 

But fine, if he wants to push, I can pull.

I can pull every ounce of control straight from him.

I leap, legs tumbling over themselves, sprinting until wind whips my face, right toward him. He cackles, wickedly as he leaps at me, springing into the air.

High ground my ass. 

“Oh, no, hold still!” I demand.

And oh how he does. Like rigor mortis, his body goes impossibly stiff, his eyes fly wide as his arms stop working and gravity settles in, sending him to the ground. I waste no time, punishing him with my blade to his mouth.

He topples back over, head colliding with the ground. The noise he makes is small and pathetic and so displeased.

“You, stupid…” He struggles, but I don’t know if he means me or him. I crouch down, setting a hand in the dirt beside him so that I can get right in his face. 

He’s suffered enough abuse, I could be tender, I could extend him a Potion, I could offer him my hand, I could tell him that we’re clearly both strong enough and ending this now should constitute as team building enough for anyone. I can maybe not be such a petty bitch for once.

But Vanitas looks at me, with trembling eyes and shaking hands and spits right in my face.

Okay.

“Real bad choice.” I grab him by the shoulders and slam volts of electricity into him that could make me go blind. And oh, how he fucking loses it. He dances, kicking and screaming, skin throbbing against mine, and I think this might be the grandest I’ve felt in a while.

Not because he’s falling apart, not because I’m kicking someone who’s never made it off the ground in the first place, but because I’m--

This is my spell. This magic is all mine and this is how I’m going to finish my fight. Mine, mine, all mine. 

He grabs my head and smashes it to his, hard enough that I drop my Keyblade and struggle not to clamp down on my own tongue. My spell ceases. Fuck no, not happening. I grab his hair in my hands and climb onto him, just so I can smash his head back into the ground. Don’t you fucking dare, I think. Don’t dare take this away from me. I’m strong. I’m extraordinary. Look at what I can do. I’m going to light the both of us up and then some. Because I’m not just here to do the dirty work, I’m not just someone great’s backup. I am the force, the lightning and the bolt and the storming thunder. I am a monstrosity too, and fuck the cage I shoved myself into. Why the hell, again, did I ever stop myself from feeling like this?

Why did I let someone convince me no defense and a lack of self control were reasons to guard myself up. Let the bastard hit me. Let my blood spill. I’ll hit harder. 

I pummel, tearing my elbow through the air into his damn nose and he roars, but this time, he’s not just wounded but pissed. He jerks his hips, I choke on the air that floods from my lungs as I land on my back, the wind properly knocked out of me. And like he can smell the weakness, he traps his hands, calloused and splitting, around my throat. He seizes me up, rage shaking his eyes, curling his lips back over his teeth.

“Try it again, witch!” He hisses pressing a thumb to my throat, and fuck, I can’t breathe. At this angle, he’s got me like a rag doll, so soft and vulnerable and breakable. He presses a little harder and I think dammit, he really is trying to break me and I can’t hiss out a spell, I can’t order a release, I can’t do anything but choke and rasp and wheeze and claw, scratching at him until I feel my fingernails start to splinter with the effort. My vision is prickling, whiting out around the edges.

No one’s going to let me die, no one’s going to let him kill me, but I can’t grasp that sort of logic. All I can grasp is that he’s not going to stop himself, so I have to.

Try again, Vanitas? Well aren’t those just the magic words.

And just like he pushes into me, I push back, spreading my thinning consciousness until it burns into him, until he’s pressed against the wall, the weight of my own abuse crippling him. Oh you were the only one who had to watch the light from the inside out? Oh you were the only one broken by a diluted bastard with golden eyes and delirious plans? Taste this.

Taste the way I was bound, the way I was beaten and tormented, the way that Saix leaned in, over my near corpse and, despite how I begged, and told me that this was for him. Choke on how I’ve had to choke down my anger, my hatred for someone and now I don’t even know what’s mine. What do I cling to, forgiveness or indifference or malice? Drink up the way the world moves on without me, the way I was trapped last year in Kairi’s absence. He thinks his life aches without the light, well he can join the damn club, he wants to devour, he can devour the way I curled up in blankets and clothes and anything that might have still smelled like her just to feel close to her again. Swallow the pill I swallowed, that I’m too much and not enough for everyone and I need to be more but not like that, never like that, I should be less, but not so much less that I can’t fucking backup the little heroes. Be everything but do it in small doses so it doesn’t get in the way when the good guys are trying to do their job. Exist, but don’t feel unless someone tells you to, and Twilight forbid you make a wrong move, even if it’s to save them all, protect them all. Don’t these shackles feel great? Don’t they feel safe?

Vanitas is choking now and abruptly I’m not, so I shove myself to my feet and kick him straight in the jaw, throwing him onto his back. I kick again, aiming at his ribs. They crack under my feet, something tells me I should feel awful about this. Especially when he wails. And maybe I will, but right now, I don’t. I kick again and he shrieks and I think that volume might equal power for me. I stomp on his hand and oh, what a bitch payback is.

Despite his broken, mangled hand, he claws and throws me to the ground, yanking his arms around me, tugging them across my nose and mouth, trying to smother me. But I’m done being smothered. I’m done being snuffed out, I’m done with a world waiting for my storm to pass or trying to quell it into a squall. Fuck these shackles, fuck this cage, fuck all of it, I want to explode.

I chomp down on his arm until my jaw throbs with the effort. I don’t even realize that my teeth are touching and I’m spitting out a chunk of his flesh until his tears his arms away and is screaming bloody murder.

Holy shit, what am I--

“Dude… Fuck, here let me--” I begin, because this was going too far, this was above and beyond, this was raw and exhilierating but not what I want to be and not the person I want to do this to. So, I fumble through my pouch, fishing for an Elixir. I get as far as extending it toward him, when he turns on me and throws me into the ground. His hand weaves through my hair, my cheeks hit the dirt, he winds me back up and slams me down again. And again, and again. He pounds me into the ground until wet, packing sounds follow me and the initial headache fades away into throbbing dizziness. He cranes my neck back, I realize the wet, packing noise was blood, my blood, spilling violently from my nose and mouth. “Shit, I give!” But I don’t. Not yet, something primal urges. Don’t stop just yet, I can get a leg up, or the pain will harshen. I’ll get another scar, I’ll lose a tooth, he’ll yank out more of my hair but what does it all matter, what does any of this matter? What does my life matter if I’m not splitting my fists on someone else or they’re breaking them open on me? I’m made for this, it’s in my blood, it’s in my heart, it’s the demon that’s been crawling out of my throat since Kairi died. It’s me, it’s unabashedly, entirely me! “Come on, I give, I tap, you win!” I spit, strikingly dissatisfied when he releases me and crawls off of me with a grunt. Immediately, he topples back down to sit on the dirt. He’s got to be just as spent as me. 

Maybe more. 

I roll onto my back, spitting out a mouthful of blood. The teeth are intact for now. But my nose is so beyond fucked, even with a Potion, it’s not gonna look exactly the same. My eyes search and find the wound I left in his bicep. It’s enough to make even me a little nauseous. 

“You need an Elixir for that, man.” I tell him, trying to find where the one I held out, fell into the ground. “There should be one somewhere around… I mean, I was trying to--”

“Go fuck yourself.” He spits, looking surprisingly flustered, folding his body up a little, as though trying to hide himself. He can calm his tits, whatever his issue is. He won. 

“Look, it’s going to get infected if you don’t do something for it now.” I roll my eyes, trying to push myself back up to at least a seated position. Blood spills straight down from my nose; I cover it with my elbow, trying to catch some of the mess as I grab two Elixirs and roll one toward him. My own goes down easy, though I’m still quite sore. For the damage we’ve done to each other, we should probably split a second one but…

I don’t want to admit it aloud because I’m afraid the implications it might have, but there’s a hell of a sense of satisfaction that I feel, still reverberating from the aftershocks of my injuries. Vanitas grunts and chucks my Elixir back at me, snapping me away from the twist of my thoughts. “The fuck is your problem?” I choke.

“I’m not taking your fucking advice, bitch. If it weren’t for them I’d have finished the job this time.” He snaps, jutting a finger toward the audience I think we both forgot we had until now.

“You’re fucking insane.” I tell him, face growing hot. “I know what you’ve been through, but the old man is dead, no one is going to beat the shit out of you if you don’t murder people anymore, and being in pain isn’t--

He kicks me right in the jaw, so hard I could sure have bit off my tongue. 

“My heart’s not a playground. No one invited you in, witch.” And with that, he skulks off, a stupid, stinky, smarmy asshole, no matter what I try, no matter how I behave. 

For just a moment, I think about laying there, playing dead and savoring the way my face aches, my throat grates and my body burns. He won, whatever, Vanitas was willing for one of us to die for the fight to be over, but I wasn’t, and look what I fucking did with even those gloves on. 

Someone tell me I’m magnificent. Someone let me scream at the top of my lungs. Holy shit.

A figure hovers over me after footsteps approach. I don’t need to be looking to predict who it is. Xigbar hovers over me, offering a hand and I snort, turning over to push myself up on hands and knees. 

“I’m not that desperate.” I grumble, climbing back up onto my feet. Though he’d probably praise me if I asked him...

“Still with the attitude?” He snarks, like this is my damn fault.

“Still with the shitty letters that don’t take responsibility for being a dick?” I counter. 

“You think that’s what you’re going to get? He raises an eyebrow. “That’s cute.”

“Cool.” I flash him my middle finger and take off, him on my tail, back toward the others. “Who picks next?” I ask quickly, trying to brush aside the man behind me before he get the chance to speak up again

“Ludor.” Invi answers and I offer my friend a smile.

Ludor rises, stretching his arms out in front of him as our paths meet.

“Lauriam.” He inclines his head toward the pink haired man, who rises like a sunflower, graceful and blooming.

“Curious, Ludor.” Lauriam cocks his head to the side, curling a hand under his chin as the other conjures a floral Keyblade with a scythe like end, and vines wrapping around the length. 

“About what, particularly?” Ludor asks as he approaches me, concern knitting his brow. Lauriam is an afterthought, a means to an end, a quick finish, it seems. He’s already distracted by me, and my body goes abruptly stiff. It’s like Elrena’s throwaway comment is now a skipping track in my head. ‘Ludor is obviously stupid and in love with you.’

“I’m simply amazed you selected me as an adversary. Our last confrontation in Daybreak Town was hardly pleasant for either of us, no?” Lauriam inclines an eyebrow as he strides forward, looking far more like a feline, stalking its prey, than any man should. Ludor heaves a sigh, offering me an apologetic look. 

“I’m not responsible for your sister’s death, Lauriam. Much time has passed, we’re hardly strangers any longer. You must know I wouldn’t be capable of such a despicable action against someone like her.” Ludor insists, as though this pleading, this apology is something he’s rehearsed for lifetimes and has recited too many to count, to this very same man. I wouldn’t be shocked if that was the case, proof or not, Lauriam is a deadly bastard and I would hate to be on the receiving end of his suspicions. But Lauriam merely purses his lips into a tight little smirk and hums, blue eyes finding me through heavy lashes.

“No, no I suppose you wouldn’t.” He says, but I hate the way he draws on it and want to tear away from the both of them and this weirdness. “Well, comrade, I’ll see you on the field. Do try not to take too long.” 

I chomp down on the inside of my cheek to hold back a shitty comment. So Lauriam and Elrena are at least conspiring, they’re just a little more at odds with each other, it seems. Whatever, this speculative bullshit isn’t going to affect the way I associate with a friend. A friend who knows how painfully unavailable I am, and that that fact isn’t changing any time soon.

“You look utterly disfigured, love.” Ludor murmurs to me as I try to brush off doubt like dust. 

“Yeah, my nose is never going to look the same.” Actual proof from him that he’s not in love with me, because normal people do not tell the object of their affections how shitty they look. Well, actually in my case...nevermind.

“Anything permanent for damage?” He inquires. I shrug.

“He’s in worse shape than me if he doesn’t do something to fix his damn arm. I appreciate it, but don’t worry.” I insist. His brow knits, but he nods. He’s overcompensating for the times he wasn’t there for me, as he had assured me he was doing before. I’m not so devoted to worrying over this. What I am is beat, so I take a seat next to Emyd, who is leaning back in his own arms, pleasant smile spreading across his face.

“I thought you two were gonna kill each other for sure.” Emyd says. I snort. 

“And you did nothing.” I remind him.

“I’ve saved your life before.” He waves a hand at me. “How many times do you expect me to do it?” But he throws an arm around my shoulder and I can’t stave off a grin.

“You’re such a shit.” I roll my eyes.

“And you sound like you’re underwater.” He tells me. “Your face looks like a horror movie.”

“And you have a bad haircut.” I counter, smiling smugly. He fixes his lips into a pout, but that isn’t what catches my eye. What does is the fact that Elrena is biting back a smile. Not a smirk. Not anything nasty, an actual, genuine smile. She almost looks friendly, but quickly, she notices me staring and turns away, expression turning to stone. Should I have invited her over here? My gaze falls away, Emyd raises a brow but I just shake my head. “I missed you, you bumble headed idiot.” I tell him, brushing aside that weirdness really quick.

“I missed you too. And Radiant Garden.” He pouts. “Great acoustics, what a laid back place to be.” 

“I miss it too.” I say, catching myself immediately. Do I? Obviously, the way I miss Twilight Town, the way I miss Transmute City, the way I miss the Destiny Islands and I think that’s the problem. I don’t miss a stagnang, stale world that I can look at and trace lonely memories to. I miss the people there, I miss the delightful moments, but I don’t miss having breakdowns in Cid’s arms or feeling the edges of where my soul ends and Lea’s begins and feeling more than distance between us. Is it possible to miss what something could be, rather than what it was? What a strange, reversed sort of nostalgia.

“Cid will probably kill you when he finds out you ran away with Xigbar.” Emyd says so evenly and I choke, punching him in the leg.

“I didn’t run away with Xigbar.” I hiss quietly, hoping he doesn’t hear the oh so causal incantation of his name, because fuck is Emyd right. I hope against all hope that my friends back home have the damn decency to lie about where I’ve been to Cid, because my godfather will actually skin me if he finds out I ran away with Xigbar. Ugh, the whole point of joining the Foretellers was to build a life I liked, if I just wanted to die, I could’ve done that from the comfort of my own home.

“Don’t hit me, jerk!” He whines, rubbing his leg. “I’m not the one who ran away with Xigbar.” 

“You’re a terrible friend and I hate you.” I groan.

“Yeah, yeah, we know that.” He waves a hand but at least has the courtesy to drop it and let me watch the match. 

And though it’s barely begun, it’s moving so fast, it’s hard to keep up with.

I love and hate watching Ludor fight and am so fucking glad I’ve never had to go up against him one on one, because it’s disorienting even being a spectator. I’ve fought Lauriam. I know he’s strong as hell and intimidating to boot. He’s got no shortage of magical abilities and can conjure up some unearthly speed in a pinch, he’s no slouch, but his pride and the way he takes everything hyper seriously are a dangerous combination, especially against a man who plays life and battles with no more weight than a game of solitaire. 

Lauriam is half way through a rapid, dashing attack, swinging his Keyblade wildly around, the way he would his scythe, when Ludor freezes time, and all of us only realize it when he has knocked Lauriam’s Keyblade out of his hand and has the other man pinned to the ground with his. 

Any other person might call it, but not Lauriam, who merely rolls aside, recalls his Keyblade and leaps back up, with the grace of a ballerina, to smash at Ludor. He’s elegant and brilliant and powerful, but no one calculates as far ahead as Ludor.

Except maybe the Master, who is hunched forward between Xigbar and Ira, elbows on his knees, hands on either side of his hood. Saying that he’s invested in this battle seems to be a heavy understatement, but I can’t blame him, I am to.

There’s it’s hard not to be enraptured, watching these two out strategize each other, not a blow needs to be exchanged, it’s consuming enough, the way Lauriam prowls and Ludor feigns and each outsteps the other.

I’m probably supposed to feel shitty for my friend when Lauriam finally pins him to the ground, blade impossibly close to the blond’s neck. But Ludor looks absolutely no worse for the wear and actually has an arm propped up beneath his head. It’s tricky to tell, but it almost looks like Ludor is grinning up at him. Lauriam’s shoulders still heave, that distorted malice altering his otherwise serene features for just a moment, hostility clings on just a little too long. And then abruptly, it isn’t a problem. It washes off his features and Lauriam smiles, a beacon of cordiality. His Keyblade disappears and he extends a hand to Ludor, like he’s putting on a show. It’s at least half convincing to anyone who knows him, I’ll give him that. Even I’m questioning whether he’s more than just the epitome of sportsmanship.

Ludor takes Lauriam’s hand and the two come back to where the rest of us are sitting, brushing themselves off. The Master quickly folds back up, a new tension obvious in the draw of his shoulders. Recalling our conversation from yesterday morning, I speculate a little, mouth pressing as I look at Ludor. It is fun watching him fight, he’s intriguing, but I don’t think the Master and I have the same reason for intrigue. I’m a sucker for the strategizing, but all I see in the set of his shoulders is disappointment in such a lack of time magic. 

“Well?” Aced barks, turning his head toward where Emyd and I are sitting, prompting the man beside me to flail his arms and choke on an inhale.

“Um?” Emyd sputters, trying to regain some sense of composure. It’s not like he was even properly called on, what the fuck? I sit up a little straighter, put on a little meaner of a face. Talk to my friend like that again, my posture dares, and whether it’s because I’m itching for another excuse to have my face bashed in, or because I just want to protect, I realize I’m not sure. My tongue darts out to lick my chapped lips. My hands itch, my body is sore and spent and broken, but I don’t feel like I’m done. Not quite yet. 

“You’re up, take initiative.” Aced waves a hand, demanding and fierce; just a few seats down, Ira clears his throat. I begin to wonder if this rivalry actually has two sides.

“Yeah right.” Elrena springs to her feet, jaw so tight it pops against the fairness of her skin, almost like a protrusion of bone. 

“Do try not to make a mess of this world.” Ira encourages her, but she snarls, stomping out onto the field. Looks like it’s not just Xigbar she hates more than me, she’s positively fuming. Halfway across the field, anxiousness and irritability radiate off of her in nuclear waves. Potent, toxic. 

“Can we just get this over with.” She whips around. Emyd groans, carding a hand through his bad hair. 

“I don’t wanna do this.” He whines, climbing off of the bench so that Ludor can sit down right beside me. Lauriam finds his way to my other side, which staggers me just a little, but he does it so casually that I try to just brush it off.

I mean, it’s not like the last time I saw him I even really focused on fighting him, I was too busy grinding electricity back into Larxene to worry about him. Maybe he too has resolved he hates someone more than me.

“Join the club water boy, you think I want to be here at all, you think if I wasn’t being tugged by a noose I would even--” Elrena catches herself face going ghostly white, she makes an expression like she’s chomping on her tongue, hateful toward the wicked thing for spewing out her trash, even the pieces she didn’t want to spill over. 

“Um...can we just not?” Emyd rises, cocking his head to look toward the Foretellers, and, unsurprisingly, Aced already has an answer brewing. 

“Don’t you think this sort of leisure is why you weren’t chosen as a Union Leader the first time around, take charge, be better!” Aced barks and Emyd just winces.

“I just wanna play my sitar.” But he summons a long, sleek, blue blade to his hand. It sits easy under his touch with its curved handle and piano key blades, but I think the most unique thing about his blade is that it looks like it’s dripping water down the length, from the cloud keychain. His hand, however, doesn’t slip, but I do recall from our time in The World That Never Was that he can’t actually get wet unless he wants to.

Elrena hisses, summoning her Keyblade. I’m not sure why at this distance she’s visibly shaking, she’s got to be downright vibrating. She sucks in a very loud breath, turns over her Keyblade and charges in, soundlessly.

Emyd yelps, stomping his foot to the ground. A wall shoots up between the two of them, a wave, but Elrena is nothing if not resourceful. She leaps into the air, springing without her hands and cartwheels right over the wave as though it is no more than an ant hill, just to deliver a violent kick. Straight to Emyd’s chest.

He huffs and heaves, hitting the ground and I notice her sparking, just like I do. She looks down at her blade, at her hands, at him, eyes sharp and focused like a hawk. I don’t know why she lets him grab her ankle and flip her onto her back, I can see that move coming, she surely must, but she howls, hitting the ground with a banshee like noise spilling from her lips. For her failing, she’s quick to recover, dropping her Keyblade to spring up on her hands and kick him in the leg, buckling him immediately. 

“Ouch!” He croaks as she recalls her Keyblade and slashes at him, forcing him to a desperate defense, hands shaking as bad as hers as their blades smash. She huffs, smashing again and again and again, recovering the second he blocks her as though the shock and reverberation of their clash doesn’t press her at all. She’s wild, the way she flies at him, with Xion’s force, with my speed, with magic crackling off her skin and her blade, the ultimate defense mechanism. She kicks and shoves and beats; anyone less comfortable playing defense than Emyd would have been broken faster. But he does break, he does buckle the second she sends her key toward his abdomen.

The howl that spills from his lips has me on my feet and Ludor grabbing my arm to tug me back down.

“This isn’t your battle.” He reminds me, but I still want to intercept. So. Bad. But he’s right, Emyd will tap faster than I did, he won’t stomach any broken bones on her accord. 

And he doesn’t, catching his middle, which looks thoroughly fucking singed, even from this distance, she barrels at him again, smacking and slashing and clawing until he hits the ground, wailing to the heavens.

She dives, charging forward but he sees the same thing I do.

I think I can spot shitty footing from a mile away.

He catches her ankle between his feet and she stumbles straight onto him, chest smacking into his, hands bracing on the opposite sides of his head as they fall to the ground. She chokes on a breath as Emyd recovers one and wraps his arms tight around her waist. She gasps and I don’t know if it’s a reflex or what, but she clings to him a little tighter, bracing herself for something. 

What a hell of a downfall.

He casts a water spell, effectively drenching her. She shrieks, pressing her hands into his chest, just so that she can shove herself off of him. She looks at him with venom in her eyes and heaving shoulders and fuck, she’s shaking harder than ever. With her eyes, she reaches for her Keyblade, but then she quickly looks away and I think that’s probably for the best, I don’t know that she could keep a grip on it right now if she tried. For some reason, it’s her I feel worse for now, something protective in me is sparking for her, but I rise and remain stationary, having no idea how to approach.

“Well I can’t fight anymore now can I?” She snaps, taking massive steps away from Emyd, like she can’t get away from him fast enough.

“What?” Emyd blinks, pushing himself up. 

“I can’t fucking touch an electric weapon or cast an electric spell when I’m damn drenched.” She throws her hands up, and looks to Ira, demanding or pleading I can’t decide. “Can I go?” Oh pleading, definitely pleading, her voice trembles as bad as her body. He offers her only the faintest of nod and she rips, like a bat out of hell, back into the castle, leaving the lot of us staring in her wake.

Emyd looks around, pushing himself to his feet. He turns to us and offers a very uncomfortable grin.

“I beat Elrena.” He says. 

“I’ll make you a trophy for it.” I offer. 

“Perhaps we can find a place to get ice cream. It’s been a rather interesting day, no?” Lauriam inquires, and though I’m mildly afraid he’s going to poison anything that goes into my mouth, I’m not the one that answers.

“That sounds like the perfect end to such a day, yes.” Ludor agrees and I catch myself a member of the weirdest damn quartet in the realm.


	27. Chapter 27

XXVI.

The night ebbs in slowly, gently, one of my favorite things about Daybreak Town. We did find a Moogle selling ice cream. Me, Lauriam, Emyd and Ludor. What a weird day.

Emyd points out constellations as they start to pepper the twilit sky, the easy elation in his sea green eyes obvious even as the light starts to fade. I think that’s what I like most about Emyd, what I liked about Demyx, was as black as the world had become, his heart didn’t, it refused to. Ludor is quite amazed by the sheer amount of them that Emyd gets correct.

“Hey, I don’t just sit around doing nothing.” Emyd chuckles.

“I mean, you could have fooled us.” I wink at him, but Emyd takes it with no more weight than a summer breeze, the playful banter warming the both of us as it passes easily through. 

Ludor commends us each on the use of our techniques, my versatility, Emyd’s defense and Lauriam’s strength. There’s excitement in his voice, like he’s so happy to be discussing strategy, especially when Lauriam dives in to inquire about his affiliation with time magic. The two talk so animatedly that I’m reminded what I like most about Ludor. He’s a fucking genius, he sees the brilliance in evey different facet of life, like he’s holding a diamond up to the sun and is the only one in the world inspecting it.

“She’d have liked this, very much.” Lauriam smiles out of nowhere, starting out at the hazy mauve the sky has become. “She liked you very much.”

“I had no idea, I do hope you believe me when I say that.” Ludor murmurs, voice a lot more grave, more serious than it ever has been before. 

“I understand now. I was a boy then, my sight was not half as clear. All I knew was that my sister liked someone very much and would not join the Dandelions until they did. I feared the worst.” And then he chuckles, sound as soft as the brush of petals against skin. “I did actually encourage her to go after you, you know. Before I realized it was you.”

Ludor doesn’t say another word on that, instead, he clears his throat, face turning pinker than I’ve ever seen before. 

“She would have been grand, you know. There’s not a moment we couldn’t have used her brightness.” Ludor murmurs and Lauriam smiles, warmth I’ve never noticed lighting his eyes. Whatever else I could have said about him, he is transforming. He’s coming alive, and all because he’s remembering his sister. She must have been so dear to him.

“She’s what led me back here.” He admits, and I think this is what I like about Lauriam, which is new, because I liked so little about Marluxia. He tells these tales of the past, of Stelitzia and opens up, completely flourishes. There’s a genuineness about the way he confesses these little details with that sucks me in, in a way his pretty poison never could. “I simply want to make my sister proud. We fought for the light for so long, it would be a disservice to her to turn my back on the Master of Masters when he calls on us now.”

\--

I’m back in my room later than I have been this entire time and am more tempted by my phone than ever. Would it really hurt a damn thing to call Lea? And even if it would, aren’t there other voices I could hear? Del, Amaya, Roxas, Kairi, Xion, Ventus, Aqua, Riku? If I went to the latter two telling them I was having a crisis before all of this happened, would anything be different? If I had pressed Riku for a little more of a connection, if I had fostered that friendship, would he have given me the answer I need? Could I have been satisfied with everyone else’s choices? Could I have grown, so beautifully, in my own home the way that Lauriam is now?

The faint throbbing in my face reminds me that I absolutely couldn’t be, so to keep my hands busy, I retreat to my bedroom mirror, assessing my mangled face for the first time since my beatdown with Vanitas. 

Pushing my hair back, bangs and all, I look over my skin, gingerly touching my nose. There’s a distinct bump in it that’s been there since birth but has only gotten worse since its broken one too many times. Thanks to the bright pink scar forming across my face, from the corner of the one side of my jaw to just below the opposite eye, I feel as though I’m staring at a stranger. I drop my hair and touch my abdomen, lifting up my shirt, reminding myself of the long scar across my middle, the indicator that the Shark Noise succeeded in killing me. 

Remember when this seemed like everything? Remember when I thought I would never get used to this? I shake my head, sighing as I grab a hair tie off my dresser and pull all of my hair up into a high bun, bangs and all. Sloppy tendrils are missed, but if I’m going to look at a stranger in the mirror, I’m going to look at all of her face. There’s still familiarity. The mole below my lips, the color of my eyes, the arch of my brows. I’m still me, I’m still Rueki, but I hate the dysphoria of seeing a road map of the war on my body at all times.

A knock sounds off behind me, a quick distraction that I’m thankful for until I throw open the door and am met by two seething golden eyes.

“Um...hi…” I blink at Vanitas, who glowers further at me. 

“Look what you did.” He snaps, jutting the part of his arm I bit off in front of me. Un fucking surprisingly, it is very obviously infected. 

“Yeah, that was shitty of me.” I agree, deciding this would be better and more mature than reminding him that he strangled me, broke my nose beyond repair and has just always been a general asshole to me. I’m even going to shove aside enough immaturity to not flash in his face how much more Ven likes everyone than him. “You’re probably gonna need an Al-Bhed Potion for that.” 

“Like I fucking know what that is, this is your fault.” He barks. I roll my eyes. This child. Is fucking. Testing me. 

“Okay.” I sigh, trying to keep my voice even. “You wanna come in, I’ve got some? I could make a salve out of it and you won’t even scar.” It’s kind of a pain to make, but he’s right, I did do that, and to someone who has been abused enough. I don’t get to chuck aside my trauma and not his. At least not altogether. 

“Fuck you, a scar doesn’t bug me.” He hisses. “Some fucking slag, trying to convince me to come into her room.” He scoffs. “Fucking obvious ploy.” But he sidesteps me and stomps in, sitting down on the edge of my bed, making himself right the fuck at home. My hands are hot, tingling just a little. I should not slap a kid, I should not slap a kid, I should not slap a kid.

“I’m pretty over the whore jokes. So you can shut your fucking mouth on that if you want my help.” I snap. He opens his mouth, looking pissy as all hell, so I don’t even give him the chance. “Or you can let that infection get into your blood, our bodies are a lot more fragile when there’s not so much darkness spewing through them, you’ll either need the thing amputated or it’ll go to your brain and you’ll die. But up to you, I respect a certain level of being petty.” 

Oh how good that feels. Somehow it feels even better when he clamps his mouth shut, jaw so damn tight.

Yeah, I fucking thought so. Damn, who is calling the shots now? Who’s on the back burner getting told that she’s wrong for everything she thinks now? Freshly satisfied, I nab my supply belt off the ground. Lucky for him I actually have an Al Bhed Potion on me, I usually don’t stock up with how fucking expensive they are. It’s easier to eat the scar and pound a Potion, but maybe I should start reconsidering, all things considered. I also snatch up an Elixir and toss it at him. He catches it, looking too irritated to function, but I also get the feeling he’d be throwing a tantrum if I handed it sweetly to him. The kid’s a fucking catch twenty two, he’s absolutely impossble to show tenderness to, because all he’s capable of is violence, and if I show violence to him, he meets me with more. It’s fucked up, but I’m not the one who distorted him, I know he’s beyond my capability to fix. 

“Don’t drink that until after I get the salve on you, or that part of your arm isn’t going to grow back right.” I order, starting to shake up the Al Bhed Potion in one hand. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t have bit me.” He growls. I inhale very sharply, very evenly, snapping my fingers and igniting a flame. His eyes flash but I hold the vial of Al Bhed Potion over said flame, and continue shaking it.

I’m not going to murder this kid. If I can’t be nice to him, I can be tactful at least. I can be level and respectable. Just like I was to Isa, minus the sarcastic jokes. Maybe. 

“You probably shouldn’t try to strangle people.” I tell him, trying very hard to keep my tone placid. “It was supposed to be a fun way to let off steam, that usually means no murder.”

“Please, you would’ve just passed out. Xigbar wouldn’t have let me kill you.” He rolls his eyes.

“And fun as that would’ve been, you could’ve won without that.” I try, because I really want to do and be better than this little asshole of a boy with a terrible attitude. 

“Because I’m stronger than you.” He reminds me. 

“Sure.” I roll my eyes. Bashing a Keyblade into someone, wow that takes real talent and is just as versatile and aesthetically cool as learning a new ability. I could cast spells in a circle around this little fucker, but I don’t need to mention that, I can be better than that. With another snap of my fingers, the fire disintegrates and turns into a steady stream of ice, rapidly cooling the Al Bhed Potion.

“You flat out admit you’re weak, and fucking Xigbar is still convinced you’re going to lead the way to some great world.” Vanitas scoffs.

“Xigbar is a fucked up dude, and I don’t want a damn thing to do with him or his expectations.” I reply, switching off the ice spell. 

“He wants you. The Master has plans for you. You really think someone so weak can be better than a pawn?” He lifts an eyebrow, grumbly, but not outright hostile. I guess that’s something.

“I’m not here for them. I’m here because the realm is dark and shitty and needs to change.” I reply, watching the Al Bhed Potion start to settle, thickening into something stiff and dense, maybe a little bit too much so. Fucking salve is so temepermental, Amaya is so much better at making it.

I want to call her, I want to hear her voice, I want her to soothe me like she does, even when I shove her away. 

“I’d blow this whole realm sky high if I could.” He mutters as I add a bit of water to the salve, shaking it up until it’s something functional. 

“Nothing you want to keep around?” I ask. Which, I guess I didn’t need to. He doesn’t speak it, but I feel it, like the ticking of a pulse, as easy and reflexive as a heartbeat.

Ventus. 

“Can you just put the shit on, witch?” He snaps. Looks like I’m getting somewhere, nowhere. Asshole. 

I head over to him, looking over his bicep, tracing the rise of the wound lightly. He flinches, as though the gentleness of my fingers distresses him. My eyes flick up, his find mine. He chokes a little on his breath, so I trace his arm again.

“I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” I ask, more for me than him, because I can say it until I run out of breath but I doubt he’ll believe me.

“Whatever, you did this.” He snaps. Dear fuck, I should smack him. Insufferable little git.

“So stop fucking strangling people, okay? You don’t need to move mountains, but you could try to be a little less of a cunt too, Xehanort isn’t here. He’s not going to hurt you, and if you want a fucking friend, I’ll be it, but you can’t be such a a shit. This is your life, he’s not here anymore. I fucking felt him die at the edge of my blade. I felt the life leave him. He’s gone, no one’s going to do what he did, ever again.” I insist. He doesn’t breathe for a long moment, so I pour some of the salve onto my hand, feeling him tremble a bit beneath me, surely there must be conflict surging through him, it’s so much to handle, and I’m hardly a tolerable person on my best day, so I dont go diving further into his mind. This boy needs more than me, but I’ll be the spark if that’s what it takes.

I think I want to be the catalyst. It feels good, I feel good and strong and focused as I rub the salve into his wound, watching it turn a normal color, lose the raise and close up, so nice and even. At my hand, of my accord. 

“Drink the Elixir.” I order him. He does, but looks pissed and is still shaking, so I take a step back and extend the remnants of the now recapped Al Bhed Potion to him. “Here, keep it. It stays good for months, and I can always remake more if I need some.” I’d need to go buy another Al Bhed Potion, but that’s not impossible. And I’m being nice. I’m being good, I’m not doing something wicked or cruel, in fact, I’m proving just how passive and kind I can actually be. I can lay on my back and--

He knocks the salve out of my hand.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I choke, eyes flying wide. He stands up off the bed, dusting himself off like the very thought of me having touched him makes him need to shower. Like I’m some sort of infection.

“I don’t want some stupid gift from a dumb whore.” He spits. Oh fuck this.

“Get the fuck out of my room.” I snap. 

“What, did I hurt your feelings, you little bitch?” He asks.

Fuck being nice, fuck laying down, fuck being mature.

“You did. Does that make you feel better? I was genuinely fucking nice to you, and you were a little dick for absolutely no reason. You’re a bad person, I don’t respect you, I don’t like you, you clearly don’t even care enough about yourself to take a damn healing supplement that you’ve seen work, when someone gives it to you as a gift, so fuck you. Next time someone bites you, because they will, because you’re still a goddamn prick, you can deal on your own. Enjoy your amputated arm, now get the fuck out of my room.” I roar. Fuck him, fuck ignoring trauma, I can’t. Not his, not mine, not anyone’s. I’m a piece of shit, so is he, and I don’t care. From one to a fucking nother, I’m gonna talk to him like he’s a piece of shit. We’ve both fucking etched this home in the dirt and I’m so tired of trying to hide in it or float above it. This is where I’m at, this is where I am, if I want to grapple and claw while I’m down here then fuck anyone who tells me I can’t. What the fuck does anyone expect of me when this is right where I’ve been lead.

I’m done being told to get over how I feel. I’m done expecting myself to blossom in this fucking wasteland I’m planted in.

“Big fucking words, do you think I care what you think? You’re a fucking idiot, you said right out loud that I’m stronger than you, the only fucking thing you’re good for is letting someone guide you around like a little puppet, everyone here knows that!” He taunts.

I could hit him. My hands are vibrating.

“And all you’re good for is playing in a field of ashes. It’s easy to be a big man and stand tall when all you do is destroy everything your path. You’re a little fucking demon, Vanitas.” I don’t care if it’s circumstantial or not, he doesn’t get to do this, he doesn’t get to be this, not to me, not as long as I still have a mouth and lungs to propel my sound. “So enjoy being a king over the fucking ants, over the fucking dead. It must mean so much, when the only way you get to be big is when everyone around you is microscopic. Enjoy your cheap ass victory.” And with that, I wheel around, throwing the door to my room open. When I start stomping off instead of telling him to get out again, he grows flustered, I can tell in the way he scrambles toward me, in the shifting of his voice.

“Where are you going?” He chokes. My hands shake, but it feels good, my pulse is like lightning, my heart is on fire, and as I move, tornadoes could form in my path, the earth could shake and I wouldn’t feel surprised. I could glow and it would feel right. Something is itching, clawing to the surface, something is set free, maybe because of him bashing my face into the ground, maybe something more, but I can’t stop the tremors as adrenaline vibrates through me and I don’t want to.

“I have other people to scream at.” I do, and I want to and I have missed this. The elevation in my voice, the grating in my throat, the knowledge that no one is capable of steering me in the other direction. “And you will be out of my room before I get back.

“And what if I’m not?” He taunts. I whirl around.

“Fucking test me, kid.” And with that, I stomp off, several floors above, searching each with a vengeance until I come skidding to a halt in the midst of an open hallway that doesn’t look very different than the one my room is in. On one side stands massive open windows, the other, several doorways, possibly the Foreteller’s rooms, because Xigbar is standing at the edge of the hall, looking out one of the windows, arms crossed to his chest.

He hears my footfalls as I storm in his direction and turns. 

“I think I need to talk to you.” I blurt, despite the fact that we’re in an open hallway and his siblings probably aren’t far away. His lips part, he cocks his head to the side and leans against the massive window, crossing his arms to his chest.

“I think you’re doing that, kiddo.” He teases.

“Find a new nickname.” I demand, my insides warm, self igniting. Oh, that’s good, I think. A little more. “I’m fucking pissed at you.”

“Yeah, that’s not been a secret.” He smirks, which burns the fire brighter inside of me. I take two massive, fearless stomps toward him, eyes narrowed. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” I snap. “Don’t talk to me like that, better yet, don’t fucking talk at all, you can listen.”

“Jeeze, what sort of bug has crawled up your--” I lean on my toes and smash my hand to his mouth, arms tensing as his eyebrows raise.

“For once, be quiet. We all know you can talk. Now shut the fuck up and let me.” I hold my hand a little longer until he gets the point or I do, I’m not sure, but only when I think both of us effectively believe me, do I remove my hand. “You fucked up. Like exponentially. You are harmful, and selfish and completely blind to all of this. I think I hate you so much sometimes, and it’s not even that you took me away from Lea, because I made that fucking choice but...but you chose to keep shit from me and I’m not going to tell people every single day that that doesn’t work for me and just stomach it when I’m constantly left in the dark. I’m done, Xigbar. I want to live and change this shitty world that we’re in now, but more than that, I don’t want to look at who I am and realize the person I want to be, the person I used to be is just a figment. I will rain hell down on this world and you and me and everyone out there before I do that. And if you can’t fucking take me seriously, stop trying to take me at all. I’m not downtrodden, I’m not dead inside, I’m not desolate. Don’t fucking build your dreams where you think my body lies, I don’t need another keeper, I don’t need a puppet master. I want a partner, but I’m done setting myself on fire to keep others warm.”

My hands shake as they go limp at my sides. I’m stoking myself back, I’m watching my own ashes become embers and flickers and flames and I drink them up. Adrenaline pumps, coursing straight to my heart, I open my mouth to spew out something, anything, just more volume, more roaring, more convincing myself that my blade was not hung up the day I hung my head to mourn and that I am not what survival made me, not when I can be more, not when it feels so good to be more, but words fail me. The tremors spread from my arms to my shoulders, I struggle for breath and then I scream.

I scream until my lungs beg in protest and then I try to scream again, but the noise is weak and raspy and does nothing but tear into my chest. 

By the time I’m breathing right again, my face feels hot and my head is reeling. Xigbar’s spinning in front of my very eyes.

“Say something.” I wheeze. He blinks a few times then chuckles, shaking his head. 

“Well fuck.” He drawls, each syllable pulling me forward, propelling me as though some invisible string connects his words to my heart. “Bout damn time you lost your mind.” 

He brushes fingers so casually through my hair, that I slap them away, eyes narrowed.

“Do that again and I’ll break them.” I dare, and he takes me up on that, making a move for my face. I snatch his hands up in my palm and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and--

His bones might be a little stronger than normal bones, that might be a thing. So I spark, skin zinging and shooting lightning into him. He chokes, shaking his hand out. I crank my fist back, he holds up a hand just for it to go crashing into. I throw another punch, he dodges, I go to kick and he skitters away from the wall. I huff, stomping at his feet, and he promptly picks me up and puts me into the window, my heart still playing a concert within me, body quite spent from my previous fight. 

“Put me down!” I demand.

“You don’t want that.” His voice is a growl in my ear, my stomach leaps. No, he’s right. I don’t. This is singularly the most alive I’ve felt in over a year, and I want more of this. More of this volatility, more of this pull the pin out of the grenade and wait for me to explode, dynamic. And I want him to flaunt how unafraid he is at every flex I make. “You feel good like this or something?” 

“Fucking electric.” I admit.

“You’re a twisted fucking thing, little Rueki.” He accuses.

“Call me that one more time and I’ll kick you in the balls.” I threaten. 

“This gonna be before or after you have a crying fit?” 

“Depends on if you have the decency to apologize to me.” I reply, skin prickling when he chuckles low, still so dangerously close to my ear.

“I’m not sorry.” This time, his words bring on an involuntary electric current, but I could hardly pretend I’m sorry when he hisses and drops me to the ground. “Do you have any fucking clue how bad I want you, how long I’ve waited? Fuck Axel, all he had to do was be born, he hasn’t searched for you in anyone or settled at every other encounter he’s had. It was easy for him.”

“We were apart for ten years! You took my memories!” I snap.

“Boo hoo, you couldn’t fuck each other through puberty, I waited lifetimes and got jipped because I don’t have a soul in the first place. As if you couldn’t understand how fucked up that is, you’re smarter than that.” He rolls his visible eye, I scoff.

“I’m not your crowning right.” I bark.

“And he’s not yours.” He retorts. My mouth goes dry. “How’d I fucking know? You don’t own him, I don’t own you. For someone who doesn’t believe in a goddamn thing, you’re gullible as all hell. Why is your brain going straight toward ownership, why is me wanting to be with you any different than you wanting to be with Axel? We’ve both seen shit, we’re both fucking unhappy with the outcome of our situations. But don’t paint this like you’re some damn saint. Tell me, did he actually make a pass at Skuld or were you just being a jealous little brat?”

“Fuck you!” I spit.

“I’m only gonna say this once, kiddo, cuz I have heard you fight enough times to know what type of lost cause you are. Stop taking your bad day out on me. I’m not fucking sorry, but neither are you. I was told from the day I first existed that I had another half out there that would complete me, I’m not naive enough anymore to take that so literally and I don’t think you are either. Or at least you sure as hell shouldn't be. I want you. We connect, it’s not enough for you, so be it. But you made a choice that brought you straight to me and I’m not playing this fight like a damn gentleman.” He tells me. “It’d hardly mean a thing if you played it with manners.”

My heart is beating so loud, it’s hard to hear myself think, it’s hard to do anything more than swallow his words and loathe and love the mirror they reflect on myself. 

“Are you implying the only thing that makes me appealing is that I don’t want you?” I lift an eyebrow.

“As if.” He sorts. “No, kiddo, you’re only appealing if I’m a choice. You crying on the ground, bleak and sad and giving up? That’s a dime a dozen, anyone can break. You don’t. You won’t. This isn’t worth it if the only thing that brought you here was you feeling too sad to tough something out. You’re the alchemist. You’re my guiding key. Whether you wanted me to, or not, I know you. You’re either in or you’re not. I’m doing this dance with or without you, little Rueki. If you’re gonna be here too, keep on losing your mind, keep on doing whatever the hell makes you feel good, doesn’t much bother me.” He makes a bold move and reaches toward my hands, but instead of grasping them, he shackles my wrists in his palms, thumbs tracing over the protrusion of my bones. “Chains are off for real, kiddo. So if you’re gonna go crazy on me, go crazy on me. But avoiding confrontation and sulking in your room? You’ve got a hell of a lot more in you than that.”

I do. He’s not wrong in the slightest, but I’m hyper aware of the pressure he puts on my wrists and how badly I want just a little more, just enough to snap me. Trying and failing to fold my fingers over, I realize just how badly I want to brush my fingers across the leather of his gloves, to focus on the sensation of just that, and not myself or where I am or who I am or what I’m doing. I realize this and realize how tempting it is to disappear inside of him. But I--

I really, really think I’m over disappearing into people. I think Lea deserved a wife with more autonomy, and the fact that I couldn’t give that to him is so much my own failing, but...But soulmates or not, Xigbar is right. I crushed Lea to my very being and everything we were crumbled in my stupid, clumsy hands. My man, someone who should have been allowed to rejoice his happy ending, someone who should have been allowed to have friends, someone who should have been so free to burn brightly. Soulmates, what a fucking ugly word, why did I have to snuff out his light just to inject a scrap into myself? Maybe if I hadn’t been jealous I could have persuaded him, maybe if I had been smarter or fairer I wouldn’t have had to compromise a marriage with the person I love most to one day rest my head. Fuck, if I could--

No. No more regrets. No more what if’s. I compromised myself in fear of losing Lea, and I did exactly that. I lost him, but I’ve lost him before, this isn’t the end of us. This is just another mountain we have to overcome, this is just another hurdle, just another leap. This is what I want and this is how I’m going to make all of the dreams we voiced aloud, when it was just him and I, come true. Fuck destiny. Fuck the ties in our hearts, fuck our souls. I’m closing a chapter, but here’s the new one, here’s the last real one, the last time Lea and I will have to climb.

“I’m mad at you.” I reiterate, though I do find something akin to comfort in the way he’s still gripping me. I don’t know that I want him to stop. 

“Good.” He says, like he really means it. He does seem genuine. “How long are you gonna stay that way?”

“Undecided.” I smirk. “But maybe you can finally stop dicking around and show me around town tomorrow.” I cock my head to the side.

Maybe.” He teases. “After your mission.”

“Back on Princess duty, finally?” I ask.

“Twilight forbid, two days off.” He taunts. “Arendelle’s calling you, kiddo. Real good place to flex some magic. You gonna answer the call?” 

We both know the answer, so I don’t give it.

“Find a better nickname.” I push him off me, unable to stop the idiot’s smile that won’t wipe off my face on my way back to my room.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there friends! Just as a heads up, we've got some spoilers for Frozen 2 from this chapter up until chapter 32, so I would highly recommend watching it if you haven't seen it.  
Anyhow, enjoy today's update and I'll see you all on Friday with the debut of 'Tempest'

XXVII.

The sound of my door creaking open startles me at a time where I would normally be half asleep and grumpy as hell, but today I’m up. I’m wide awake, fidgety, showered and fully dressed before even this world’s ultra early Daybreak. Maybe one day I’ll have a normal and not completely codependent sleeping schedule but today is not that day. I expect a black trenchcoat to come through my door, I don’t expect the face attached to it.

Detachedly, I take a seat in bed, body quick to respond to something anchors me in place. This feels weird, strange, otherworldly. I don’t know if I’m the only one that feels it.

Xigbar chuckles.

“You gonna throw your damn diary at me like you did the last time I walked into your room without permission?” He asks. My face goes cold, my mouth twists. Ugh. 

“It was actually…” I drag my teeth across my lower lip. “Last time you were in my room was when Saix…” My hand balls into a fist, fingernails scraping across the mattress. Realization dawns in his eye.

“Fuck Saix.” He says, hastily. I snort.

“Stop trying to sweet talk me, why are you here?” I ask, fighting back a smirk. He knows all the right things to say, I’ll give him that.

“Can’t I just be here to charm you?” His body slides languidly as he drapes himself across the doorframe. 

“I don’t do well with actual tenderness.” I remind him. “And something tells me you’re not the romantic type.”

“No, you’re not wrong.” He chuckles “Lust, and all, I’m the absence of love by nature. But I can be nice.” He reminds me, tossing me over a bound scroll. I lift an eyebrow. “A map of Arendelle, a little bit of recon on what’s been going on.”

“Another one of the Master’s great powers?” I ask, though I do untie the scroll, trying to commit the map to memory, before it inevitably gets torn apart. Not that it wouldn’t be useful to have, but map fragment is a great ingredient to have in synthesis.

“Nifty, huh?” He cocks his head, smirking so vibrantly that I catch a bit of it. Fuck, this rat bastard is a little too slick. 

“Very.” I say, skimming over a bit of the recon text. “So you’re literally shoving me in here to save this world from spirits?” I blink brow wrinkling as I gloss over. 

“As if.” Xigbar snorts and when my eyes flick up to meet his, the intensity of his gaze nearly breaks me. My hands ball up into fists in my sheets. This is so much. It takes perfect focus on his concentration to not break under his stare, so obviously I do, reverberating with a chill that vibrates my bones. It’s not like he’s doing anything but I swear we both feel it, we have to or this enchantment wouldn’t feel half as tangible and oh do I feel enchanted. I feel like I could rise and fall under the power of his wants and wouldn’t buckle. No, in his hands I could be strong until the very moment I’m allowed to break and only then. There would be nothing, no panic that fills the empty space as my mind lets go, no blacking out, just me on a string, safely propelled by the momentum of expectations. “You shouldn’t be butting into this place’s affair. Let the princesses save their world, just tag along and do whatever you did in Sector 17, Area 51. Oh, and by the way, neither girl is optional. You want Radiant Garden around when this all ends, you’re gonna need to take whichever light you gather last and bring it there.”

“I didn’t presume anything was optional. But what about Kairi?” I lift an eyebrow, not that I think I’m going to have any luck convincing her to hand her light over, especially when she already should have, when she promised me that--

I’m not angry, I realize. Not this time, not at this, not when I know I’m chasing a solution and not just settling on another treatment. With reality settling and Xigbar’s presence as an escape from my downward spiral, I don’t think that’s what bothers me about Kairi. I think it was easy to throw blame, I think it was easy to get comfortable in disconnect, I think I missed her so bad that I didn’t heal, that I couldn’t and her reality was shattering the illusion that I did. I think I just missed her, even when she was only a few feet away from me, even when she was nuzzling me on the couch. She never stopped being lifetimes away, even at that proximity, because I never allowed her to be. I never wanted her trapped back in my arms because I never wanted to admit she was gone in the first place. 

Not when I still couldn’t stomach her absence. Not then, not now when Princesses of Heart are my priority. I miss her a lot. Maybe as much as Lea. 

“You really think your best friend is just gonna hand over her light that easy instead of trying to swindle you into giving up your chase?” He scoffs, lifting a brow. “Fat chance on me tossing you into a opportunity to walk, I’m not that dumb, kiddo, did you suddenly forget how hard I worked to get you here? No, you’ll keep on your track and hopefully pluck away just enough hope for your little friend where she gives her light over willingly and you can put it right in Daybreak Town’s heart. I mean, you could technically force it out of her, but I know you, remember?”

“And you know I don’t have the balls to do that.” I chew on my lips. 

“I know you’ll do it if you have to, cuz it won’t hurt her, but you’ll be such a damn wreck about forcing your friend to do something against her will that you’ll be non functional in a realm that still has even a touch of darkness. You’ll need untainted light to not turn into a panicky mess.” He rolls his visible eye, but the little cheshire smirk doesn’t leave his face.

“I might still turn into one anyway if my friends don’t get over me walking away from them.” My mouth twists and I say friends, but I think we both know who I mean, specifically. 

“Well, guess you’ll just have to curl into something you know is safe, huh?” He lifts an eyebrow, and while his words are lovely, the tone is just sharp enough that I know he’s teasing me. There’s nothing safe about the powder keg of a man on the opposite side of the room from me and there hasn’t ever been, despite his smooth talking and promise of unconditional affection, a promise I hardly trust but don’t mind the idea of as I rise out of bed. 

“So not you?” I grin. He claps a hand to his heart and makes a dramatically pained face.

“Ouch! And after everything I promised you?” He teases, following my lead as I head out the door of my room and into the hallway.

“Yeah, whatever happened to the whole ‘I’ve given up hope’ thing when it comes to us getting together?” I lift an eyebrow, because what a damn far cry from his little speech last night, one that’s already replaying in my head like a too catchy song. ‘I’m not playing this fight like a damn gentleman’. No, certainly not. I think it says more about me than it does about him, that I rather like how blunt he was. Something is seriously wrong with me. 

He chuckles, whipping around, ponytail swinging as he snatches my chin up and presses me right into the wall. Fuck, does he know how to squeeze my heart like a hand grenade. There’s something so damn sexy about being pressed so tight like this by a man who doesn’t want, doesn’t need but craves and anticipates and demands from me. It’s primal and flips each and every dizzy switch in my damn brain, and I’m almost certain he knows this, because he leans in, wrecking my poor heart with his hot mouth dangerously close to my ear.

“Bet you liked hearing that.” He nearly growls and hell, my knees aren’t going to make it. But a memory comes stabbing at my chest, something sweet and tainted, of a time that has never hurt more but never felt more like heaven. Axel and I in Castle Oblivion, him pinning me to the door of my room, begging me to let the fantasy continue a little longer because he was so hungry to pretend to feel and I was so easy to bend because I couldn’t imagine a world where I wasn’t deadly close to the sun. I grab at Xigbar’s coat and I think he thinks something else is happening and that my breath is hitching for much lovelier reasons. “Guy’s gotta do what he can to get you here, huh?”

“You’re a bastard.” I choke, trying to push the hyperaware part of me down and drown the damn thing out. All I’m doing is trading one self serving asshole for another, but undeniably, this is intoxicating, he’s wine, so sweet at the tip of my tongue and--

And I do hate him. But the rest of the world becomes background noise, sandwiched between him and this damned wall. Hate, lust, conflicting and compatible, vivid emotions that feel nothing like the bleak emptiness I drown in when left to my own devices. I could get lost in this, I could close my eyes and convince myself that this makes perfect sense.

“That part doesn’t bug you so much, does it, kiddo?” I like the vibration of his chest as he laughs, so damn amused. 

Yes, yes, something is wrong with me. Because the only reason I’m letting this happen is because I’m not happy unless I’m getting played. Because there’s something sickly sweet in being tied like a pretty little bow around the thick fingers of a man who is deadly but has the courtesy to do it with some damn swagger.

He’s right though. I did like what he had to say, I could have drowned in the promises as he rained them down on me and if he could have just kept selling me the lies, I never would have complained. Am I upset he even lied to me in the first place, am I pissed I bought the lines, or am I pissed that he broke the spell and forced me to accept something I already knew was true. He sounded so sweet, and we both know that was exactly what I was craving when he fed it to me.

I make a move to shove him, but he grabs my wrists and slams them right over my head, I see stars.

“You’re a shitty person.” I tell him, though it sounds breathy and playful and utterly lacks venom.

“Doesn’t change the fact we’re supposed to be the end all, be all for each other. All you could ever want, all you could ever need and someone who could mirror that for you instead of someone who won’t rest until they control the half you stole from them.” He makes the ultra romantic notion of soulmates sound equal parts trite and violent, but I hear one word stand out above the others. Supposed. How slippery I must feel in his fingers, sliding between them, supposed to be his one and only.

“You know I don’t do anything but hard earned happiness.” I remind him. I don’t need to speak at lengths about why this isn’t working, why it’s bound not to happen. “No, you being a piece of shit isn’t half as deterring as it should be. But we both know what’s going to keep me holding out. I want Lea, I will always want Lea and you’re not him.” 

His visible eye flashes, sharp and dangerous and he sucks in a breath, like I’ve stolen it from him.

“Well…” He contemplates, and there we both are, holding breaths and heartbeats just for him. “That can be true all you want it to be. Want him, love him, I don’t give a shit. Neither of us can hide from what’s inside that sweet little heart of yours, huh? You can tell me how bad you’re clinging to him until this realm falls apart, but we both know that you don’t want me out of the game.”

My body zings, sparking in a very different way.

“Haven’t you spent enough of the morning harassing her?” 

My fist flat out smacks into the wall and I choke just a little, thankful for the abrupt distraction. The acceptance of how right he was is not something I’m in the mood to unpack, but I’d hardly call Elrena a savior. My eyes find where she stands, just a few doors down outside what I presume is her own bedroom after seeing who the fuck knows how much of him trapping me and me not kicking or scratching, or screaming. I wonder what this will mean for her newfound protectiveness toward me.

“Haven’t you done enough not minding your damn business?” Xigbar heaves a sigh, hands still wrapped around my wrists.

“She took a swing at you, called you names and told you she still wants Axel more than you.” Elrena rolls her eyes as she strides over, arms crossed to her chest, thigh high heeled boots clicking dramatically against the floor with her every step.

“And you suddenly became best friends when?” He asks, because he knows what I know, what she doesn’t, and my hostility was foreplay. 

“She’s resolved to only being medium amounts of mean to me.” I explain, poking my head in her direction.

“Rueki’s right, we’re not friends. But there’s nothing I hate more than some limp dicked little sneak trying to sweet talk his way toward someone who adamantly wants someone else. I mean seriously, how many times does someone need to tell you that you’re gross before it sticks?” She scoffs.

“I don’t know El, you saying I should take some tips from Lauriam or was it easy for him to convince you that you weren’t damn hung up on--”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll castrate you right now.” She snaps. My eyes narrow, I blink, lashes like butterfly wings as I mull over the expression on his face.

“Xig, I am curious, why are you so familiar with how it feels to be someone’s soulmate if they’re so rare?” I ask.

“Because the poor baby hates losing.” Elrena presses her lips into a simpering pout. “Tough shit that she’d screw me before you, huh?”

Xigbar heaves a sigh but pushes himself up off the wall, rolling his neck.

“She’s pretty high up on the list of people I’d get with if I was single.” I admit.To my surprise she smirks. 

“And I’ll reiterate, I’d pay to see that.” Xigbar says, crossing his arms to his chest, though he’s worlds more closed off than he was a moment ago, and I think it’s probably incredibly fucked up that I’m upset about that. “What do you want, Elrena?”

“To shit on your morning.” She bats her lashes. “Where are you going?” She asks me and I cock my head to the side.

“Arendelle…” I trail off. “You don’t need to come with me or anything though if you don’t want to.” Okay, what is actually fucking happening, my damn head very well may burst and I’m not even out trying to swindle princesses yet. Elrena laughs, the high, repulsed, mocking sound I’m used to and it’s a little easier to stomach now.

“I’m not coming with you.” She rolls her eyes. “You could absolutely not pay me to.” She tosses the few strands of her hair that cling to her neck back, smoothing them meticulously into place. “I have a job to do too, I’m just trying to decide how much time I’ll have to abuse your little friends before I have to get back here and cockblock this asshole since you’re too stupid to do it yourself.”

I don’t actually know what’s happening in my life anymore. Does this have anything to do with that weird moment of us catching eyes yesterday or is this more related to the utter meltdown she had while fighting Emyd? 

There’s something, I’m not stupid, a solidarity, maybe, that she’s not trying to admit to, a kinship, and probably a yearning for the other half of her soul that she more than understands when she sees it in the pain and wanting that decorate my expression no matter what I try to dilute it with. I’m not even masochistic enough to try to inquire about who hers is again, but I do think there are a few pieces that might be lining up. My outward resistance to Xigbar, despite the fact it was no more than a game of cat and mouse, the possibility, that since her room is so close she heard me shrieking at Vanitas. I doubt I’ve done anything to earn Elrena’s trust or respect, but maybe she feels a little less bitchy thinking I took her advice. Surely, she seems to think that she’s looking out for me. 

“Right, good, fun as this has been, you can run along now.” Xigbar rolls his visible eye, waving a hand to shoo her away. Elrena snorts and seems half interested in picking a fight, but I get the sinking feeling that this could go on forever and like the flip of a switch, she could turn on me and decide she wants to take out a special type of rage on me again. 

“I should get going too.” I remind Xigbar. “I’m gonna get antsy and basically insufferable if I’m stuck sitting around another day.” 

“I sincerely doubt you could get worse than you are now.” Elrena taunts, seeming quite proud of herself. 

“She’s right.” I nod. “I’m basically the resident dumpster fire.” No one is amused by this joke and part of me wishes I was on my way to Shibuya instead of some other magical fairy tale world. Last night with Lauriam, Ludor and Emyd was nice. Having friends is nice. Maybe even nicer than burying the parts of me that I hate inside of the way Xigbar seduces me. 

“Right, right, this is probably the part where I say that your wish is my command.” Xigbar begins, but Elrena cuts him off with a particularly nasty witch’s cackle. 

“Or you could shut up and spare us the trouble.” Elrena offers. I can see the sheer effort, probably even a mile away, that it takes for him to stay rigidly planted at my side, inhaling and focusing just on the breath he takes and not on her, pointedly not on her.

He waves his hand, opening up a bright white circle for me.

“Thanks.” I crack a smile and his face softens, breaks just a little bit. I see once more, the trace of a boy who wants something so badly to fall in love with, hopeless and romantic and this clutches me even tighter than the jerk who has me half turned on and shoved into anything he can manage. “I’ll tug your heartstrings when I need you.”

And he chuckles, enjoying this private little joke, despite Elrena.

“Oh I’m sure you will.”

So I take a step and burst through the portal he create, to Arendelle, limbs shaking, eyes wide, senses suddenly hyper aware. I’m bafflingly alert, to the point where I’m catching myself against some massive tree, struggling for breath. Hell, my knees are clattering together, I’m beyond dizzy and no matter how I try, I can’t catch my hammering heart.

What the fresh fuck did Xigbar do to me? I’ve traveled by light before, and something is absolutely not right, I’ve never hit the ground feeling jittering and delusional and--

So damn good. Wow. My veins shine, bright and vibrant, to the point I swear I can see them through my skin, but maybe I can’t, maybe I’m actually losing my damn mind. Maybe this isn’t all Xigbar, maybe this is this world, there’s definitely something trembling in the earth below me but--

My head is still reeling. It’s so bad I can’t stay on my feet. I slide down the length of the tree, clutching my head in my hands, squeezing it tight, like if I can somehow compress it a little harder, I can pop these spins like a damn zit. 

The air is crisp. Earthy, fucking delicious, even the way I press my face aginst the bark of the tree feels sturdy rater than grating and unpleasant, like hell, this wouldn’t be such a bad place to take a nap. Not with the vibrant red, orange and yellow leaves on the ground, burning as bright as a fire, dancing in the wind, not with the pleasantly cool fall air, not with--

“Elsa wait!” The high, pearly voice of a young woman rings through the air, footsteps crackle in the leaves beneath me and I try to blink back white, twinkling spots, like fairy lights in my peripheral vision. Elsa. That’s one of the princesses, something in the back of my mind registers. Maybe it would be a good time to get off my ass. “I know what you’re trying to do, you can’t lose us!”

“Well, she can, but that wouldn’t be very nice.” Another voice sounds off in an almost singsong. A quiet groan penetrates the air as the footsteps grow closer.

“Alright, I’m sorry.” A third voice, this one warm and gently breathy says, closer than the others. “But please, I need quiet, I don’t want to miss the voice.” Someone takes a deep breath, and then, the third voice sings, a high, enchanting trill through the air.

This is promptly cut short when someone else sings off key, yelping with all the grace that-- well, every bit of tune I’m capable of, if I’m being honest. And in my private adrenaline rush, I can’t contain myself. I wince loudly, clamping my hands to my ears, pinching my eyes shut, wondering if this will get rid of the brilliant light dotting my vision, though I’m not quite sure I want to get rid of it. Not when I swear I can feel something stirring in this forest and within myself. With my eyes closed, this isn’t so bad, the sensory overload is nearly pleasant. If I can control it, if I can keep this glistening on a leash, the possibilities start to swirl in my mind and suddenly my abilities seem endless.

What was I so worked up about again? 

My hands leave my ears and I hear someone gasp, loudly. Eyes flying open, I come face to face with a pair, just a little darker and bluer than mine.

“Elsa!” It’s that sweet pearly voice, the one who was telling Elsa to slow down before, but she’s far more alert now and as I’m regaining a handle on my senses, so am I. Way to be coherent and not act like a sloppy idiot, Rueki. Maybe I should give Elrena permission to kick the shit out of me. Twilight knows after being pointedly nicer to me this morning, she’s probably itching for it. “Are you alright?” The woman in front of me asks, crouching down fully, tucking her ginger hair over her shoulder. Footsteps sputter over and a fiercer woman leaps into view, white blonde hair bound in a loose braid, eyes the same color as the auburn haired woman in front of me, but this woman is colder and sharper.

“Who are you?” She’s the third voice, obviously, and hell if I couldn’t taste the cynicism on her even without my super senses and the tingles still trickling down my hands.

“I’m Olaf and I like warm hugs!” A voice sounds off from just behind the redhead and-- and a snowman is waving at me.

What the fuck is my life.

“Oh, and this is Anna and this is Elsa.” The snowman tells me, gesturing to the redhead and then the blonde, respectively. “They’re usually much more polite than this, but they’re arguing. Allegedly it’s what sisters do, but I wonder if it’s just an excuse to fall victim to a stereotype.” He contemplates and I flat out choke. 

“We’re not arguing.” Elsa’s mouth turns taut, a firm, stern line.

“Oh, right, we call this creative differences.” Olaf agrees. The redhead, Anna sighs, Elsa’s shoulders tighten and she takes a step in Anna’s direction. Hmm, a blonde with an attitude protecting her redhead, where have I seen this play out before? 

I guess I’m personally required to thank Xigbar though when I see him next. Spitting me right into the middle of not just one Princess’s path, but two is hellishly good lucky. And that’s not even considering the delicious memory I sample as quickly as I can from Sora, one that presses at my brain until I allow it entrance.

“You’re royalty.” I say. “I know you.” Well, I don’t. “I mean, my friend knows you. Sora.”

“Oh! You remember Sora, right? He was oddly spiky.” Olaf contemplates. Elsa inclines an eyebrow, but Anna’s features light up.

“Are you a friend of his?” She asks and I nod. “That means you know Kairi then? Oh, and what was the man’s name? The one Kristoff was talking to?” Anna looks up, from where she’s crouched to Elsa.

“Axel.” Elsa answers and my insides freeze over. My skin buzzes, my hands go hot and I bite back a curse when I realize they’re actually on fire.

“Sorry, sorry.” I shake my head, clapping my hands together until the fire ebs and I can shake the lightning off of myself with the quick jerk of my wrists. Wow, what a smooth fucking entrance, I’m high on whatever the fuck Xigbar did to me, two princesses find me basically strung out on the ground and then I have a magical surge because my husband is in this world and his mere mention has my insides throbbing. Oh, if I could find him, if I could run back to him, I’d forever kneel, I’d cling to his leg like a pleading child, curl at his side like a starving animal. Oh what I wouldn’t give to beg forgiveness and twine myself so tight around him that I forget where he ends and I begin because we don’t, we’re not separate, we’re one and I-- 

No, no, no. That’s not what I want, that’s what my aching fucking soul is begging for and it takes both proverbial hands to shove it back down. Whining, begging at his feet, that’s not how I stay sane, that’s not a world I can stay alive in and no matter how close I do want--not need, want-- to be to him, I want to chase my goals, not his, more. I’m actively writing my happy ending and not even the man I’m writing it around can have that from me. 

“What are you?” Elsa alters her initial question, but her shoulders go just a little more slack, her expression becomes more curious than afraid.

“Your friendly neighborhood darkness exterminator.” Or whatever it was that Axel told the chief’s daughter in Motunui that him, me and Roxas were. 

“You have magic too?” Anna asks, cocking her pretty head to the side.

“Oooh! Just like Elsa!” Olaf delights, and Elsa meets me with a weary smile.

“Not two elements though.” She tells me, sheepishly. “Just ice.”

“My blizzard spells are pretty trash compared to my lightning magic, I give you credit.” I tell her and she blinks, eyes more childish and expressive than before. The fucking talking snowman must have some sort of brain, undoubtedly these two are sisters. With Elsa looking so youthful and stifling excitement, that’s clear. 

“You control all of the elements?” Anna gasps. “Elsa, do you think she’s the fifth spirit?” 

“What?” I blink. Fifth spirit, that’s a new title, just when I was getting used to ‘alchemist’. “I mean I can’t involuntarily conjure anything other than lightning, and that’s just…” Honesty, Rueki. Honesty is how I’m going to win these princesses over because that’s not something someone like Xemnas or Xehanort would do. “Axel’s my husband.” Was? Is? Fuck me, my heart stings, sore and throbbing like an infected tooth, a pulsating reminder.

“Really? We could take you to him, ooh and Kairi too, she’s so nice.” Olaf offers, my heart skids. “Well, we actually don’t know where they went with Kristoff and Sven.”

“And that’s fine. We’re not...in a great place right now.” I chew on my lip. “Which is why I had that reaction. I’d really rather not run into him. But I can’t just use magic so freely, I mean, if I want to use a spell I have to cast it, that’s taxing.”

“So it’s learned, not something you were born with.” Elsa observes, almost eager for knowledge, but Anna all but glazes over the magic stuff.

“Well, if you don’t want to see Axel, we don’t need to see him.” She nods. “It’s… it’s okay to be in a funk with someone you love..” Her face screws up and I warm, almost immediately. I like Anna, there’s something so inclusive even in the softness of her face. It doesn’t hurt that she reminds me quite of a redhead I realize I also miss. 

Kairi’s here. Axel’s here. Bet Del or Roxas are with them, because wouldn’t that make the trifecta of Keybearers I want to come home to.

Un fucking fair. I almost blame Xigbar but there’s no way he can know Lea and Kairi are here. After the discussion we had this morning, I don’t think he’d send me anywhere with the chance of running into either of them, intentionally. No, I get the sinking feeling that the Master is trying to test both of us, and every rebellious impulse in me screams that I should fail just to piss him off. 

“Right, we won’t judge.” Olaf agrees, I catch a smile on the edge of my lips before it gets too far. I am making friends with a snowman. I reiterate, what the fuck is my life? 

“If you’re not here looking for your friends though, how did you get here?” Elsa asks and Anna sighs.

“Also, what’s your name. Really, we’re not rude.” She beams, Elsa’s face flushes.

“I--I didn’t mean…” Elsa begins, but Olaf taps the side of her leg with one of his branch hands.

“I think Anna was just teasing you.” He offers. Anna giggles, meeting her sister with a fierce grin.

“I was, don’t worry.” She says and then, reconsiders. “I mean, unless you think we were being rude, because we really aren’t!” Anna insists, with the wave of her hands. I can’t help it, I bark out a laugh.

“Dude, no, you guys are good.” Rude piece of trash is basically my middle name, but I don’t say that in my outloud voice. “I’m Rueki. I’m uh…” I push my hands into the leaves beneath me and rise to my feet, Anna rises with me, eyes bright and hopeful and encouraging. The truth, Rueki. I’m a shit liar anyway. “I’m here for you. I’m here because your world is in danger and you guys are the key to saving it.”

“Pfft!” Anna giggles. “Tell us something we don’t know.” Well, not the reaction I was expecting, but not bad.

“We’re trying to remedy what I’ve done now. I know I shouldn’t have woken the spirits.” Elsa licks the chapped skin of her pink lips.

“But you needed to, we needed you to.” Anna insists. “I mean, how else could we have discovered that there’s a secret keeping tons of people trapped in an enchanted forest?” 

Elsa shrugs, blatantly unconvinced. My brow knits together and I look at her, pieces connecting. The determination, her frustration, her fixation on magic.

“You’re a catalyst too.” I observe. Her brow knits together.

“I guess you could say that.” She admits.

“You’re totally a catalyst.” Anna nods.

“I’m not sure what a catalyst is, but if Elsa is definitely an agent of rapid change.” Olaf agrees, prompting a laugh, something small but genuine to spill from Elsa’s lips. 

“Okay, okay. So I shook things up a little.” She concedes.

“Well, that’s something I’ve been known to do too. That’s why I’m not really talking to my friends right now. My methods are...a little extreme.” I confess. “But super effective.”

“And what are your methods?” Elsa inclines an eyebrow.

“Mostly using undiluted magic to preserve the light of the worlds and ensure that darkness can’t get back in to rob us of the moments that make life precious.” I explain. “They didn’t...um… Axel specifically worried about the power I had, he didn’t trust that my decisions were moral when I stopped being afraid to unleash it, so I left.”

“I understand.” Elsa breathes, nodding steadfast and sure, taking another step toward me. “Plenty of people don’t trust magic, so many are afraid that it convinces the user they’re above the rest of the world, but I don’t think very many of us with powers actually believe we’re above anything.”

“Well, I trust you.” Anna smiles, so sweet and gentle and the upturn of her freckled cheeks is so pleasantly familiar. 

“And Anna is a notoriously good judge of character. Well except her ex fiance.” Olaf giggles, turning Anna’s face bright red. 

“Olaf!” Anna protests.

“I think Anna’s right about this one.” Elsa laughs. “Anna and I trying to find something or someone. There’s a disturbance in this forest, my powers are guiding me toward some sort of solution. I don’t know if it will help your cause, but you’re more than welcome to join us. 

And I don’t know if I’m supposed to say out loud, right now, that the only thing that will help my cause is joining them, so I don’t. I nod and smile and do what I feel like a hero is supposed to do and follow them into the unknown.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends and happy holiday weekend! I'm gonna be drinking most of the weekend so if I don't respond to comments or respond with something super long, just know that was what is in my drunk heart

XXVIII.

“Okay, I think those things are gone.” I sigh, running a hand back through the pieces of my hair that started to hit the slick skin of my forehead. Heartless, they’re attracted to the Keyblade, who fucking knew, I think irritably, banishing Backbiter. This world’s got more magic in one leaf than Transmute City had in its entirety, it's nice that when I use it, it’ll do wonders for my stamina as a spellcaster. Still, it’s weird knowing that I have no business pulling out a physical weapon. Because when I do, even if it’s to do something simple like, perhaps, hoist myself up higher than the sturdiest branches of a tree to scout for anything magical, per Elsa’s request, the fucking Heartless appear.

And it’s not like anyone was helpless, Elsa’s ice magic is strong and Anna and Olaf were both sufficiently feisty. But I do feel responsible for creatures I know exist.

Heroes work, I’m doing stereotypical heroes work. I wonder what Lea would say.

Xigbar would laugh. My mouth contorts as I realize that I’m predicting his reactions. Twenty four hours ago I would have slapped him. I’d probably still slap him today, given the right circumstances, but feeling awakened leads to a lot more complicated reactions. Including coming to terms with the fact that the familiarity he feels toward me might extend in the opposite direction. He frequently reminds me that he knows me, that he’s had enough time to watch over me, but has my heart been calling me to do the same thing subconsciously, have I let him in on such a level where I’m hyper aware of him or is he just that level of extra where I’m starting to see a pattern in all that he does?

It’s probably a combination of all of those things, if I’m being honest with myself, which I don’t want to be. 

I hate this, it was a lot easier to ignore my life and pretend I hadn’t moved from the ticking of melancholia without the delicious distraction that the Freeshooter brings. 

\--

“Rueki, do you ever consider the fleeting passage of time and whether or not it’s merely a concept?” Olaf asks and I all but have a heart attack in the enchanted forest.

“Excuse me?” I balk. Magic, Rueki, he’s probably talking about your magic and wants to know the extent of it and if it controls time, he’s a snowman, like a sweet, innocent snowman. There is no way he has been reading the weird, ticking of my thoughts.

Well, I mean he’s a magical talking snowman, so who even fucking knows.

“Olaf’s maturing.” Elsa laughs, this breathy, ethereal sound. 

“He’s had a lot of philosophical questions lately.” Anna nods. “It’s okay if you don’t have answers.” Okay, but how would anyone have answers to that?

“I mean, time passes quickly, but only when we’re making memories, right?” I ask.

“They do say time flies when you’re having fun.” Olaf agrees. And when you’re not it seems to inch by, this past week of my life seems like a lifetime. I feel like I’ve grown, I guess, or at least taken off the mask that was lying over how I felt about being something that had so much happening to it rather than being a happening myself. I do feel less in the dark, but I’m also painfully aware about what these missions are to me. Means to an end, ways to protect Lea and Kairi and the others I love but can’t stomach being around.

“So then maybe it’s a concept, but maybe it doesn’t matter. We’re living it, aren’t we? Isn’t the only thing that matters how we’re perceiving it?” I ask.

“What a unique outlook.” Olaf smiles.

“I wonder if it does make a difference.” Anna ponders. “If there’s a set reality and then the ones we perceive.”

“I don’t think so.” I say, though I instantly want to take the words back because I hate the dreamy look fading off of Anna’s face. “You know, do bad guys think they’re bad? Does a good guy thinking they’re doing something good make them less of a hero?”

“I guess I really don’t know.” Anna makes a face.

“Me either.” I confess. “That was one heck of a question.” I shoot Olaf a look but he doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed.

“Olaf just wants to know everything.” Elsa smiles knowingly and Olaf nods.

“Can you imagine the trivia we’re gonna have for the trip back home?” He asks, both Anna and Elsa immediately go pale and I look around, searching for Heartless, but find none. Huh, guess the prospect of trivia with Olaf is rather bleak. 

\--

“So, Rueki.” Anna saddles up beside me, arms linked behind her back, eyes wide and inquisitive and too unassuming. I grin. I like this woman, I like her a lot. “You don’t look like you’re easily shaken.”

“Ha!” I choke before I realize how terribly impolite I am. “What would give you that impression.”

“You said your friends and your husband are disagreeing with you. And you’re here alone. I think I’d hate that, not knowing who was on my side, not having anyone with me.” She admits. My face goes red from hairline to neck, I have to force myself to look away from her, dear fucking Twilight this whole group knows nothing about smalltalk.

“I have people on my side, I know who is. It’s just different people now.” I make a face, listening to my own words. Ew, when did I become such an optimist? 

“I mean, um would you mind if I asked you about you and Axel, like what’s going on there?” Anna asks, dragging her teeth across her lower lip. “That was too much, wasn’t it? We’ve only just met, I’m sorry, I’m just...trying to figure out things of my own.” She confesses, swiping hair behind her ear. “You don’t need to tell me, I can be a lot, I’m sorry.”

But I don’t think she’s being a lot, I think she’s asking a lot, but that’s a different thing and I do want to vent, and a neutral party wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing but--

But goddamn, there’s a lot to unpack.

“Nah dude, you don’t need to apologize.” I wave a hand as we traverse through the leaves. “The short of it is that we don’t seem to know how to talk to each other properly.” And the long of it all is that after years of being a messy ass couple with trust issues, fury and differing opinions on major topics, my best friend died and what started as love ended in codependency. Not that Lea’s burst of jealousy helped when in the beginning, I couldn’t control the pull of my heart to Xigbar’s, and not that I didn’t help things along by rushing to Xigbar the second Lea stepped away but I might have sealed the nail in the coffin when I handed Lea’s rings back. 

“But that’s something you can work through, right?” Anna wrinkles her nose. 

“Yeah, normally.” I agree, but I would hardly call finding out your husband is your actual soulmate and that the whole experience is confirmation that the both of us have been spending the past few years trying to steal away and devour the joy at the expense of the other isn’t something I know how to traverse. “It’s honestly just really complicated with him and I. There was a lot of jealousy and a lot of history and our views on how to save the world were just a little too different.” 

“Do you think you just need some space to figure out what to say to each other?” She asks, hopefully, and I realize she’s not asking on behalf of anyone but herself. I wonder if it’s that guy she mentioned Lea and Kairi going off with, Christopher or whatever, that’s lingering on her mind.

“Usually.” I say. “What’s your guy’s name?” 

“Oh, um it’s Kristof, but I wasn’t asking about that.” Anna’s back to biting at her lip so I smile just a tiny bit. 

“I think when everything changes it can be hard to be in a couple. If you guys can weather some distance, you’ll be fine.” As long as both of you aren’t Keybearers, destined to fall back into the same routine of cataclysmic war after war. 

“He’s just been so weird lately and I’ve been so busy trying to help Elsa figure things out, I really just don’t have a lot of time to guess what’s going on in his mind, I mean who can even know what guys think about?” She huffs and I laugh.

“Um no one, they’re the worst.” I say.

“The worst!” She agrees, throwing her hands up. 

“Just, even though he’s the worst, maybe check in with him every now and then?” I lift an eyebrow. “And I guess hope that he’ll just be real with you.”

Maybe one day I’ll learn to take my own advice, but when everything changes, it is hard to be in a couple and when your heart belongs to one person and your soul to the other and all you want to do is belong to yourself and sort out the conflict pounding in your own mind.

“It’s just so hard with everything happening with Elsa. And he went off and disappeared into the woods, so I just left because we didn’t have time for me to find him and I just feel like such a jerk and what am I supposed to do if he’s being so strange?” Anna asks, exasperated. I smirk.

“I’m not a love expert.” I insist.

“No, I know, but the trolls raised him, it feels weird to ask them this.” She says and I think, what the fuck about trolls?

“I guess what I’m saying is that Elsa can take precedence but asking someone you love how they’re doing and not getting upset when they need more of you than you can spare just goes a long way.”

We’re quiet for a long while, only the sound of Olaf and Elsa and the crackling foliage permeate our conversation. But after that strained, swollen moment, Anna reaches out and squeezes my hand. My heart sputters in my chest.

“That is good advice.” She says. Sure, I think, but does good advice count for anything when I never follow it and am too stubborn to turn back around? “Thank you, Rueki. I’m not a love expert either and I know we don’t really know each other, but I think things will turn out good for you, too. I mean, how can they not when you’re chasing what your heart wants? If you and Axel are both chasing the same dreams, you’ll end up there together. Me and Kristoff too.”

And she says it with such conviction, even I am blindly optimistic. These damn Princesses of Heart have a way of wrapping me so tight around their fingers. 

\--  
“Elsa wait up!” Anna calls off as her sister, mid hum, breaks out into a sprint, eyes blown out like some unknown force is dragging her halfway across the forest.

“Oooh, fast running.” Olaf delights, I pick up my pace, eyes narrowed. Elsa’s fast but has nothing on me. Anna gasps as I pass her and Olaf, an impossible breeze shoves us back, Anna grabs hold of my arm, even Elsa skids to a halt, leaping back, just in time to watch an unsteady, ancient, tree crash to the ground. She gasps, I get in Anna’s way quickly, sheltering her and Olaf from the debris flying at us.

“Magic wind, what a weird place.” I shake my head.

“A place of transformation.” Olaf disagrees as we right ourselves, Elsa is very obviously miserable as she searches, head turning every which way.

“Ugh!” She actually stomps her foot. “We needed that path. That’s where the spirit was calling me.”

“And now we can’t get through.” Olaf hums, looking around with Elsa.

“No, watch this.” I bite my lip, excitement sparking in my eye. “Aeroga!” I cry, and with strained arms and shoulders, I guide the wind, propelling the wayward tree trunk sideways, clearing out the path entirely. Elsa’s eyes light up, Anna claps her hands in delight.

“That was amazing!” She chirps, hanging onto my arm, contagious and bright. I do feel like a hero with Anna clutching me like this, I think it’s impossible not to. 

“It’s effective.” I agree.

“No, Anna was right, that was extraordinary. What more can you do?” Elsa asks, head cocked to the side, a smile fighting for dominance on her features. I know that look. I’ve felt that look and not very long ago. My mind flashes toward Wonderland, cackling with Xigbar as we chased each other through the world’s heart. 

“Well…” I chew on my lower lip, eyes narrowed as I look around at the rest of the scenery. There’s so much foliage, plenty of upright trees, but hardly anything I can tinker with. No, I remind myself, what have I learned about magic other than that there’s plenty of latent magic in the worlds around me? I’ve spent so long treating what I’m capable of as nothing but a weapon, my alchemy, my magic, my own body, no fucking wonder I’ve had so little pleasure come from it. I trace my own palms with my fingertips and just to shiver into the touch of it. 

I just want to feel good, is that so damn wrong?

Reflexively, I shoot flames out of the tips of my fingers and into the foliage, and I’m not sure if it’s my soul or Lea’s soul or my magic growing stronger, but I’m utterly unscathed, and invigorated, even, as I call my next spell.

“Waterza!” A tsunami washes over the landscape, effectively extinguishing the fire, leaving soggy ash in our path. But in the wake, it’s dark and bleak and blackened and--

And I miss the red and orange and yellow of the leaves. I hate what I’ve done.

“That one wasn’t as cool.” My mouth twists. But I’ve got another idea already brewing, pleasure for the sake of pleasure. “Okay, one more trick, Elsa, would you mind coming here?” I ask, extending a hand to her. She raises an eyebrow, but reaches out, tenderly setting her fingers on mine.

“Oooh, Elsa this is cool! Have fun!” Anna giggles as I swipe Elsa into my arms, causing the blonde to yelp.

“Rueki, I--” She struggles.

“Just trust me. Just for a second.” I plead. Conflict washes across her features, prevalent in the tight press of her lips, but after a second, she does nod, clutching my shoulders. “This is fun, trust me.”

“Magic is fun…” She considers, so do I. Magic can be fun. 

“Magic is fun. Zero Graviga!” We’re up in the air, floating, Elsa on top of me, squealing as her eyes flash across the ground in front of me. My skin buzzes as our joint laughter reverberates, the two of us clinging to each other, my hair fluttering hers standing on end, her dress whirling around her ankles. 

“What are you doing? I feel so dizzy!” She giggles, and I do too, my head falling back into the softness of the air around me. I’m hyper aware of the tendrils of my hair that tickle my neck, of my eyelashes brushing my cheekbones as my eyes start to flutter shut. Damn, this is really something, what am I doing again? I can’t remember, but I know I haven’t felt this weightless in--

The abrupt awareness of the last time I felt just like this is not something I’m prepared for, and snaps me quite quickly out of my haze. I suck in a breath and slowly, gently start guiding us toward the very end of the disaster I created in the ground.

“That was…” Elsa starts, knees shaking as she grabs at my arms, looking remarkably like her sister. “Extraordinary! What was that? I’ve never felt so at peace.” 

“Honestly, me either, that’s why I learned the spell.” I laugh. “I… Axel and I had lost each other, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how bad I missed him, but this was the only thing that made me feel even a little--”

“This seems like a very nice story, but can I go next?” Olaf waves a hand from the other side of our path. Elsa offers a sheepish smile.

“Actually, I think I’ve got another idea.” She suggests and with the quick whirl of her fingers, she creates an ice rink that extends from our end to theirs and conjures up a little ice sled for them to climb onto. 

“Oooh!” Olaf delights, Anna giggles, following him onto the sled, which they zip down, giggling wildly. 

“Magic is fun.” Elsa concedes and I agree, though I’m biting back a smile, though I’m clutching these strange feelings as they bud in my chest. 

“That was fun, but I still wanna go next with the whole flying thing.” Olaf looks up at me expectantly and a smile perks at the corners of my lips.

“Alright, sure, but hold on tight, it’s intense.”

\--

Elsa sings, hands cupped around her mouth, calling every which direction with panicked eyes and were I to rest my hand upon her neck, I’m sure I would hear a demanding pulse point, banging away for attention. 

This trip couldn’t have gone entirely smooth, I suppose. At least, not when my big, dumb mouth decided to drop a bomb on them.

Here I was, thinking I was actually being slick. As it turns out, my timing might have had more to do with Anna’s warmth than my sudden ability to understand conversation cues. 

What the fuck is it with me and redheads who are just inviting as all hell?

Anna, to her credit, is nodding along with me, taking my words in stride, with a bit of side commentary from Olaf that is equal parts hyper naive and insightful. Elsa, might suddenly be a lost cause. 

“So, the worlds are falling apart and in order to protect Arendelle, I just have to give up something in my heart?” Anna blinks. “That’s easy, of course.”

Elsa snaps, body rigid as she turns to look at Anna with a look I know all too well. 

Maybe Kairi and I are sisters, between Nani and Elsa it just lines up too perfectly.

“Are you actually offering to give up something in your heart to a complete stranger?” Elsa balks.

“She’s friends with our friends, Elsa. It’s not like she’s some jerk from the Southern Isles, and please stop acting like I’m so fragile that I can’t do anything for Arendelle because I can!” Anna pleads.

“And it can’t hurt you. Princesses pass it down anyway when their worlds settle into peace typically and I’m promising peace.” I insist.

“That’s a massive promise from someone we don’t know.” Elsa’s eyes narrow and I take a breath. Okay, she’s worse than me, she’s how I used to be before I got dumb enough to hope what people said was true. 

“That’s why I’m here, trying to help you guys in any way I can.” I remind Elsa. “Trust me, when Sora showed up in my world and demanded that I help him fix his ship so he could save worlds, I wanted to kick the kid in the a--. I wanted to kick him, like real bad. But we became friends because he proved himself to me and now there’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for him, and I wouldn't be asking this if it could hurt either of you. I’m just trying to be candid, you decide if you trust me, but I don’t want anyone surprised by what I ask.”

“If she really wanted to hurt us, wouldn’t she have hid her evil plan until the end, Elsa?” Anna huffs.

“Not everyone is like Hans.” Elsa rolls her eyes. “She’s got no proof this won’t cause damage to either of us.”

“You two aren’t my first go at this, okay? I’m kind of a useless trash can with a bad attitude but if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s making sure to learn from my mistakes.” Even if it takes more than a few tries. “And… And Kairi’s my best friend. She’s like you, she’s a Princess of Heart, I will have to ask this same thing of her. I lost her once last year, I’m doing this so I don’t lose her again, I know you don’t know us or me, but I’m asking you to let me earn your trust so you can know in your hearts that I wouldn’t do anything to her that could ever affect her negatively and in turn would never ask the same of another Princess of Heart.” I plead. Elsa’s gaze softens and hardens and turns unreadable in a matter of seconds as she looks away, arms crossed to her chest.

“If this is so harmless, why aren’t you with her?” Elsa asks and Anna’s face goes bright red.

“Elsa!” She protests but I shake my head.

“No, that’s fair.” I insist. “I love Kairi, she is my best friend in the entire world, I want what’s best for her, and she’s still so young. All she’s known of life is war and decay, she doesn’t know it can be better than this and that she doesn’t need to live only knowing mortal danger. I’m giving her a chance for change, even though she doesn’t believe in it, even though she’s afraid of it, even though she and Axel might think I’m being dramatic, I know better. I know they deserve better. So right now, they’re at an arm’s length until I’m sure that they can act like they love themselves as much as I love them. They don’t right now and that’s fine, but I love them enough to be okay with them being mad at me until this is sorted out.”

Elsa’s eyes flash with something curious as she turns to me, but Anna’s mouth twists.

“I don’t think that’s right, for you not to want them to have a say in their own lives. But if you are trying to make this world a better place, I’m sure they’ll forgive you. Maybe if she can help Arendelle, that will help Kairi understand her a little better, don’t you think, Elsa?” Anna whines, but Elsa closes right back up again, shaking her head.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this conversation, Anna, there’s too much going on, I’m not making a decision right now.” And with that, Elsa strides off, singing loudly again. Anna’s eyes narrow and she huffs, crossing her arms stubbornly to her chest.

“I think Elsa is shutting herself out again.” Olaf suggests and Anna groans. 

“Definitely shutting herself out. I am so sorry, Rueki, my sister does this, she was convinced it was the only way to keep me safe from her powers because she thinks I’m so breakable, but I’m not and I wish she would stop thinking that everyone around her needed her to make choices for them.” Anna complains but a sorrowful smile cracks across my face.

“I think she and I are a lot alike in that sense.” I confess, setting a hand on my hip. “You guys do have stuff going on right now, I get that. I’m not on like a crazy time crunch or anything right now, you do have time to decide, that’s not a problem. Like I said though I didn’t want to be a di--” My eyes flick to Olaf. “A jerk and not tell you guys until the last minute and just act like you owed me cuz I helped you or something, cuz that’s not what this is about.”

“I know. And I know Elsa thinks I’m naive and maybe I am, but I trust your heart, I can tell it’s kind, Rueki. Sora and Axel and Kairi wouldn’t all be friends with someone who was wicked. And you haven’t been wicked to us. You could have let those monsters attack us. That’s why you have my promise, my light is yours the second we save Arendelle.” Anna assures me. “Come on, let’s go after her, she’s just looking for an excuse to do this on her own.” Anna shakes her head, Olaf following right where she leads, me watching the two of them. There’s a moment where this is too surreal and I’m convinced this is just some sort of nasty trick being played on me by the universe. Even the details are a little too spot on, the blonde with powers that propel her forward, skepticism for days and a guarded desperation to keep something close. A redhead with a heart of gold, warming everything around her from the inside, impulsive but caring and bright enough that nothing about her behavior comes across as foolish. Not until I’m the one protecting her.

Not me, no, this isn’t about us, this is about Anna and Elsa and Olaf, so I follow, chasing after Anna and Olaf, the latter of the two still seems intent on matching Elsa’s song with a shriek of his own. 

“Olaf, maybe just one of you should do it.” Anna suggests, wincing only half as hard as I do and I think poor girl, she’s used to this.

“I agree, she’s a little pitchy.” Olaf replies. Wind ruffles through my hair as my footsteps finally catch up to theirs, I smash down the bun on top of my head, but the wind, almost teasingly shoves me harder, so that I’m stumbling over myself, choking as I dig my heels into the dirt, coming to a stop just beside Elsa.

“Magic wind?” I lift an eyebrow, looking around, anticipating more. She just bites her lip and says

“Gale.” Like I’m supposed to know what that means. But I can lay off the sarcasm, I’m physically capable of not cursing in front of a childlike snowman or making sarcastic comments to a Princess of Heart who isn’t particularly fond of me at the moment, I’m a grown up, I can exercise self control. Beside me, Elsa narrows her eyes, takes a step forward right at the peak of the hill we’re on and abruptly, her breath hitches. Tremors wrack her pale hands, her pupils dilate, her expression is frozen in fear.

“Elsa.” I murmur, taking a step toward her. She flinches, jerking away so that I’m only able to catch her by the wrist, and only very gently. She’s hard as hell not to spook and I’m a glorified stranger, but this is my wheelhouse. “Hey, no one’s gonna hurt you. I’m just trying to see if you’re okay, what’s wrong?” I ask, trying with all I can to keep my voice purposefully light. She looks around, eyes darting, her mouth parts like she’s struggling at how she wants to phrase this, or maybe just forming words in the first place when Anna and Olaf catch up to us, and Anna gasps too, clapping a hand to her heart.

“How can it be?” Anna asks. Elsa turns to her sister, chokes on her words and rips away from all of us, taking off in a sprint down the hill. Olaf, Anna and I exchange a look and follow her down into the ruins of some dilapidated ship washed up at the edges of the sea. It’s very clearly rotted, probably old though I know little of how ocean water weathers a ship. Still, I doubt anyone on board this thing could have made it out alive.

“What is it?” Olaf asks as we pop into the massive hole penetrating the ship.

“Some desecrated hunk of junk.” I make a face.

“This is our mother and father’s ship.” Anna whispers to me and my face goes pure white. Oh. Oh fuck, great job, I was absolutely meant to talk to Princesses, I’m not a fucking idiot or anything. Dear fucking Twilight.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.” I whisper an Olaf gasps and I think there goes the whole no crude comments or cursing thing. Time to pack my bags and start my life over in a new realm. 

“Did your parents' ship go down in the Southern Sea?” Olaf asks. “This isn’t the Southern Sea.” 

“No it isn’t.” Anna agrees, voice absolutely grim, face darker than the shadows cast in this wreckage. I’m not supposed to be here for this, absolutely not supposed to be around for such a private moment, there’s no way I can be a part of this without solidifying myself as an intruder, I take a step back, toward the entrance of the ship when Anna catches my hand in hers and shakes her head. “No, please stay.” And she says it so much like she means it, with the same wide eyes and hopeful optimism that my mere presence might mend things that Kairi wears like a crown.

So I give in, managing a shaky nod. Dear Twilight, is every Princess on my list an orphan?

“Why is their ship here, how is their ship here?” Elsa sputters, erratically tossing things around the ship and as though I’m a figure watching myself again, I leap forward, catching scrolls and trinkets as she throws them behind her. She whirls around, eyes wide when she finds me. Her shoulders are absolutely heaving, but she’s stagnant again at least for now. “Thank you.” She mutters, a little begrudgingly. 

“Anything I can do, tell me.” I tell both her and Anna. “I get it.”

“Oh, your parents were lost at sea?” Elsa snaps, defensive in ways that I know and understand and instead of clashing back with her, a miserable smile brushes up the corners of my lips.

“In space. I don’t really remember them.” I confess and she gasps loudly again, fingers vibrating as they touch her lips. She opens her mouth again, I’m not sure what for this time, because Anna cuts her off.

“Elsa, their ship must have washed up from the Dark Sea, that’s the only explanation for it being here.” Anna explains.

“What were they doing in the Dark Sea?” Elsa asks, stringing herself tighter. I want to still the world for both of us, because her anxiety chases mine, and I don’t think Anna understand this. Not with her quick bounce back, not with her obvious resilience. It makes me wonder why Elsa, another Princess of Heart doesn’t have this same quick recovery. What sort of horrors would someone have had to endure for light not to touch them? Am I just as lost of a cause?

“I don’t know.” Anna murmurs.

“How did their ship get through the mist? I thought nobody could without magic. Unless…” Olaf swallows audibly. “Nobody was on it.”

“There’s got to be something here.” Anna shakes her head, determined, a beacon as she pushes past the cluster of us. “Wait! Wait, look around. Every Arendellian ship has a compartment that’s waterproof.”

“That’s very clever, although that makes me wonder why they don’t just make the whole ship waterproof.” Olaf says, looking around. I choke on a snort, shaking my head.

“Dude, you and me both.” I pat the top of Olaf’s head and he looks up at me, bright and excited. He’s sweet, maybe I need some sort of talking, animated something. Maybe not a snowman like Anna and Elsa, maybe not an alien dog thing like Lilo and Nani. Shit, maybe I need a dog. It would certainly help me sort whether or not I actually don’t mind spending time with Xigbar or if I just appreciate the all encompassing way he permeates the gaps left behind in Lea’s absence. 

Suddenly, Anna gasps on the far edge of the ship, yanking something out of some sort of compartment. 

“Here!” She whips the thing, a scroll, maybe out, and we all rush her, me with my head cocked to the side. “What language is this?” Anna asks and I blink. Oh, can they not…?

“Here, this says Arendelle, this is Northuldra, so we must be here if we’re at the edge of the Dark Sea.” I say pointing to a spot on the map. “And this is...Alt…”

“That’s our mother’s handwriting...and here, more notes.” Elsa points to the bottom edge of the map.

“The end of the ice age, the river found but lost. Magic’s source, Elsa’s source? They traveled north, planned to cross the Dark Sea toward--” Anna begins, but Elsa seems to already know, too much and not enough clicking into place in the transparent expression she dons.

“Ahtohallan.” Elsa breathes.

“It’s real?” Anna gasps.

“Ahto--what?” Olaf asks and I’m thanking Twilight for him, because I’m already enough of a blemish on this moment, a moment where two sisters should be allowed to grieve without a strange woman’s eyes and expectations on them. Why could the Master have possibly thought now would be a good time for me to be in Arendelle? 

“It’s a magical river said to hold all the answers about the past.” Anna explains. Because this is my life now, what the fuck. Still, it’s tempting and I’m immediately curious. What answers could a world like this have for me? About the past Xigbar relayed to me, about Elrena’s weird change of heart, about my own parents? I would chase anything to get ahold of these answers, and the shift in Elsa’s expression makes me think she would too.

“Reinforcing my water has memory theory?” Olaf asks, sounding a little proud of himself.

“Water has memory…” Elsa’s voice, already small, trails off.

“Elsa?” Anna asks.

“I wanna know what happened to them.” Elsa says, stern and shattering, and in a display of magic that makes what I’m capable of look like a cheap party trick, she waves her hands, drawing moisture from the rotting wood of the ship, and collects it in the air. Figures come to life, made of the crystalized water looking half like glass but moving fluidly.

“Ahtohallan is the source of magic.” Once say, time seems to pass.

“We keep going. But Elsa…” 

More time passes.

“The waves are too high!” They scream each others names and clutch each other was waves and the figures turn to ice around them. I don’t need to see Elsa to hear the sound of hyperventilating beside me, even though the sound of shattering hearts rings higher and louder and beats into mine. What the fuck is wrong with this realm? What the fuck is wrong with all of it, it’s the darkness, I’m sure, bu who convinced themselves that this was normal? That good deeds never get paid back, that we have to lose everyone we love, that this sort of agony should be a part of anything?

Elsa takes off in a sprint, whipping past us, and Anna screams her name, chasing right after her.

“Come on, Rueki.” Olaf urges, tugging at the hem of my jeans, so I follow him, straight out the wrecked entrance, toward where Anna is trying and failing to comfort her sister.

“This is my fault, they were looking for answers about me!” Elsa insists. My gut twists. It’s my fault Xion died, it’s my fault Isa lost his heart, it’s my fault I was chosen over Skuld, I want to shake her and scream at her that this isn’t on her because how can she think any of this is when it’s so palpably on me?

My parents were experienced pilots, could even something so far back have been predetermined by the Master of Masters? Is this just another check on the laundry list of wrongs I can never right?

“You’re not responsible for their choices, Elsa!” Anna insists and I think how pretty, how righteous, how safe her heart is, what am I doing trying to take that light away from her, I don’t want this girl to freefall, not like Elsa’s doing… Not like I’m doing.

And that’s why I’m doing this, that’s why I need their light, so no more of this happens. I can breathe, I can think, I can calm down, this isn’t my trauma, I don’t need to absorb this grief the way I absorb everyone else’s. Fuck, no wonder I was drowning in my own inablity to act for so long, how do you move or think or breathe with the weight of everything crippling all you used to be?

“No, just their deaths.” Elsa shakes her head.

“Stop!” Anna commands.

“No!” Elsa snaps back. 

“Yelena asked why would the spirits reward Arendelle with a magical queen? Because our mother saved our father, she saved her enemy, her good deeds were rewarded with you. You are a gift!” Anna insists, so sweet and so convincing, that my own mouth tastes bitter.

“For what?” Elsa asks, still so unconvinced.

“If anyone can resolve the past, if anyone can save Arendelle and free this forest, it’s you. I believe in you Elsa, more than anything or anyone.” 

I don’t realize I’m crying until I’m wiping back my cheeks. This, I think, is it. This, a moment like this, a promise like this. This is what I would give up anything for.

But this is not my moment, this isn’t my pain, so I wipe back my stupid tears, take a deep, silent breath and try to form something that could be helpful or make sense.

“You guys mentioned a fifth spirit, right? The bridge or whatever, right?” And thank fuck I can keep my tone steady even this long. 

“Yes.” Elsa murmurs. “It must be calling me from Ahtohallan, that’s the only explanation.”

“The answers from the past must be there.” Anna agrees.

“So, that’s where we go.” I set a hand on my hip. “If it’s a place of magic, I’ll give you an extra hand, whatever it takes Elsa, you and I can uncover its secrets.” 

“But that’s the thing, Rueki, we can’t do whatever it takes in Ahtohallan, if you go to far, you’ll be drowned, we have to be careful. We can’t just go diving into this!” Anna throws her hands up and I stagger, unprepared for this outburst. Elsa’s eyes meet mine, there’s a quiet hope in them, unsteady speculation being done, and I realize our parallels don’t end where I thought they did.

“I guess you’re right, Anna. I mean, it really does suck to lose you friends and family. Even when you’re sure you’re doing the right thing, even though this is what you’re born to do.” I say carefully, steadily. Elsa’s eyes brighten.

“Right, of course, and that’s what I’m trying to make sure of. I would never want to stop Elsa, I just think we need to do this together. I don’t want her dying, trying to be everything for everyone else.” Anna explains. “I can’t lose you, Elsa.” She tells her sister, who seems to warm just a little.

“I can’t lose you either.” She says. She doesn’t even have to beckon Anna toward her, no instead, Anna springs up, launching herself into Elsa’s arms. “Come on.” Elsa giggles, urging Olaf forward and that’ when I realize exactly what she’s doing. I take a step back, looking toward the river of us, cascading impossibly downhill. It’s in the way her laughter is unconvincing, in the swirl of her hands. She summons a sled or a boat of sorts and shoves them onto it. 

Anna goes soaring down the hill, unable to catch traction on the slick beneath them, clutching Olaf as they scream Elsa’s name. My eyes fly wide, my shoulders square and every fiber in my being reacts as though I’ve been electrocuted. I can match her in magic. Maybe, probably, I’m not sure at all, but if she’s trying to fight then oh dear Twilight, I wish I had Xigbar explain to me how I could force light from a reluctant princess, because--

Because if she’s trying to square off then how the hell am I supposed to convince her to trust me, how am I supposed to seal off her world?

She finds the blown out panic in my gaze and takes a purposeful step back, hands up defensively as though I’m the wild one that struck her sister down.

“Listen…” She tries, taking another massive bound further from me. “I don’t want to fight you, I didn’t want to do that to her, and you can follow me, something tells me it would be helpful to have someone else who has magic with me, but if… I’m not going to be held back, Rueki, I need to know the truth so if you’re going to try to stop me then--” I can hear the rising anxiety, spiking like a storm in her voice, so I swoop in and snatch Elsa’s hands, squeezing them like I needed so bad for someone to do to me. Like I still need.

“No one here is going to stop you.” I shake my head. “Whatever it takes, we’ll get you closure. I will never hold you back, never ever and if you had to lose Anna to keep her safe just know that I get it.” I assure her, squeezing the elegant length of her fingers in my palm. Elsa’s gaze stops trembling so bad I hope mine has too, I hope I can convey to her some sense of reassurance rather than such deep panic at the prospect of failing my mission. She looks down at our joint hands and slowly brings them up and for a moment it feels like we’re old friends, conspiring eagerly. 

“You are truly just looking out for them, aren’t you? Your friends?” She asks and I laugh, this tiny embarrassed sound.

“I don’t love that you sound surprised.” I admit and now she laughs and here we are, as though we’re just silly girls trying to align our views and not women who have cast away others that they love.

“I think I just needed to hear you say that. That I’m not alone and that you understand.” She confesses, a smile cracks across my face. I decide not to mention that I might well have needed validation too. 

“Well you’re not. It feels like garbage, but if it saves them in the end, we have to tell yourselves it will be worth it. And whatever it takes, we’ll get you where you have to go.” I assure her.

“Alright.” Elsa nods. “And Rueki? When this is done, you have my promise. My light will be yours.”

“Really?” I blanche, because her previous resistance, especially the grip her parent’s death had on her implied so much otherwise. 

“Yes.” She promises. “I don’t need it. Not if she’s okay.”

I hardly need to ask who, because me too.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter mismarked as chapter 30 for actual months now. It's a sad day when you realize you're only 11 chapters ahead of your work, but it's a fun day when yesterday, you played KH2 on the headset with your friends and beat Demyx in Radiant Garden with an ice cream cone in one hand. I feel like that's BIG sea salt trio energy

XXIX.

My cheeks sting at the burn of icy wind, prickling tears into the corners of my vision. Elsa yanks her hair, tightening the impossibly thick ponytail she dons after discarding half of her wardrobe. What a queen needs that many layers for wandering the forest in, I don’t know.

Icy waves that I can feel the temperature of through boots hardly made for water, lick the edge of the shore we stand on.

“If it gets too brutal, I want you to let me be, please Rueki, this isn’t your journey, don’t hurt yourself chasing me on mine.” Elsa says, uneasy eyes flicking over to me. I rub my palms together, feeling wayward, uneasy even. I guess this is what happens when I want a world that feels like my home, the bite in the air is so reminiscent of Transmute City, it’s almost difficult to stomach. It’s not the treachery of the terrain that stills me, no that’s hardly a deterrent anymore. Not to me.

What I don’t like is how much this feels like a dawning, in the frigid, bleak, nothingness, just me and another so similar to myself, I feel like I should yank her back and trap her away and do anything in my power to prevent her from embarking on this. ‘Stay out of it’, I could tell her. How good can closure really feel, how good is chasing a destiny really? 

I think for the first time I actually know the answer to that, so I only fantasize about holding her back. 

“A little bit of bad weather doesn’t scare me.” Not even magical bad weather, but I do feel it gripping the bones in my hands, which feel heavier and ache with wear they should not have seen at my age. I’m older than I can take right now.

“No, I suppose not.” She allows, looking me over before rolling her shoulders back. I tuck down a smirk.

“No, by the way.” I tell her. “You don’t end up looking half this bad from one little quest.” I need the reminder too, that the beginning of an era is not quite so easy to pick out as this moment.

“I--” She chokes and gives me this pathetic little look. “I’m not worried about me.”

“I know, but the sooner we knock this out, the sooner we get back to Anna.” 

“You say it like it’s just going to be that simple, like all we’re going to get is cold, hard knowledge. This is my family.” She reminds me, but I hardly think that makes a difference. Isn’t it all just easier if it’s a cold, unflinching slew of facts, wasn’t everything in my life easier when I held it at an arm’s length, and wouldn’t she do better, especially as a monarch to feel the same?

“It’s just one more obstacle, right? This isn’t where your journey leads, it’s back home, don’t forget that. That’s how you get lost.” That’s how you build a world, a life, a home and a heart around a crash site. 

“Yes.” Elsa licks her lips. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” And then she stiffens her shoulders and tips her chin upward before stealing a glance my way, eyes shrap and reignited. This must be what a queen looks like in her most regal state. “Okay, let’s go.” 

She doesn’t wait for me, instead she sprints, shooting ice from her fingertips into the sea. I bite back a chuckle. So I’m not the only one with that idea. A laugh, something stupid and blissed out spills from my lips as I recall that day in Scala ad Caelum with Ventus. My magic has grown since then, I’m stronger now, better now. Let’s see just how much I can do.

“Aero!” I cry, conjuring wind with the wave of my hand. I leap onto its stream; it roars in my ears, but I’m breathless, coasting on it, reminded of the softness of Ven’s embrace as we rode the breeze together--

And suddenly I hit a wall. Elsa too. Her spell falters, or maybe a wave takes her down, I’m not sure, I just know we’re both tumbling into the sea and are spit out like the very water itself is rejecting our efforts. Which, it probably is to be honest. I hack, spitting out ocean water, not for the first time, envious of fucking Emyd. A shiver pierces me, Elsa twists out her hair.

“Are you alright?” She asks.

“I have a friend who can’t get wet unless he wants to.” I make a face.

“That’s lucky.” She laughs.

“Lucky doesn’t even cover it, did the freaking sea just kick us out?” I ask.

“That’s the nature of these spirits. Everything’s a test, like they’re challenging my magic. The air and fire spirits did, the earth spirits created a barrier and sent us forward in this direction, now it’s time to conquer the water spirit.” She shoves herself back up to her feet and takes a breath. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah, just gonna try something different.” I nod, eyes narrowed as I analyze the waves, the uneasy sway as they rock and roll into each other, sending quivering, icy foam into placid waters. So very much like my own crash into the World That Never Was. Storm breaker, world shaker, Elsa is a catalyst I remind myself, but so am I, always have been, I always will be and this is how I will rock the realm. “Zero graviga!” My center of gravity flips, abruptly, I am suspended, as though a string hangs from the air and twists around my belly button. That sweet delirium that comes with inversion starts to rise, my body wracks with a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold, but, however disconnectedly, I slap the side of my leg and start to blink back the sweet spots. Below me, Elsa is shooting out ice, running on it, surging it, pushing it against a particularly brutal wave, sealing it, turning it into a ramp for her own use. And I’m taking off, walking the clouds like they’re my playground, leaping from one to another, to another, fluttering like I’m all faith and trust and--

Dammit!

I’m crashing, headfirst this time like I know nothing of magic at all and dear Twilight, if I’d have figured out light travel, maybe I wouldn’t be sinking helplessly into ice cold waters. Once more I’m tossed back on land, scraping dirty, gravel like sand off of my clothing. 

“Fuck!” I whine, tossing my head back. Elsa’s eyes, already wide, become huge as she looks at me. “Damn, sorry, I was trying not to be total trash.”

“This is difficult.” She agrees. “Do you think you can try to control the water while I use ice on it?” 

“Probably.” My mouth twists. “I’ve never dealt with magic water, but it’s worth a shot.”

So we spring back up and Elsa grunts, throwing her arms back, before jutting them forward, ice flying with the wave of her hands and I shriek ‘waterza’ so loud, my throat grates. And I don’t know that I know how to control anything other than the level of destruction I bring or the hell that I inflict on the world--on myself, on my loved ones-- but with all my might, I’m shoving my own water spell down into the sea, trying to slam and beat and subdue it, but there we are again, coughed up onto the shore, waterlogged and frigid and half drowning.

“Maybe if we both use ice?” I ask, climbing back up and extending a hand to her.

“Worth a shot.” She pulls herself up with my assistance and we take off, still connected by the join of our hands, fingers pressing into each other’s skin with enough force to leave imprints as we leap and hope and shoot spells out across the expanse, turning the sea beneath us into an ice rink, still and safe and-- and we hit a barrier. My gaze falters as I look beneath us, skidding along with her. The ice beneath us is quite solid, well over a foot of clean, glassy ice, and I can watch and I can discover and I risk none of the reality of what is beneath us. No water spirits, nothing but our powers, our capabilities. It’s such a lovely shelter and I miss nothing of the drowning and the failure but we hit a pocket, something leaps out from the waves and I have to be hallucinating, because it looks so much like a horse, but that isn’t possible. I push my spell forward, projecting and projecting, but it’s futile and I fall straight through, into the ocean.

Beneath the ice, the water is oddly warm. Oh, Twilight, it’s been so long since I’ve felt the piping hot embrace of this, of whatever it is.

Before I know it, I’m on the shore again, gasping and choking and wheezing and I swear to anything that I see green eyes on mine, baring into me like he’s there, like he’s real. 

Like we could be having such a soft moment if he were here. 

I spit out the water and brush back tears that I don’t want to see a trace of. There’s no Elsa beside me, no Elsa anywhere in view, and I don’t know why I do what I do, it’s so much instinct and so much desperation and even more of the shrieking pain in my chest and the knowledge that the best I have for it are band aids and how pissed that makes me, that propels me forward.

Dark clouds decorate the sky and so does my lightning as I strike the open air. It sears, crackling, pulsating and snaping and venomous, more like me that the crystalline ice or the force of the water or the delight of the suspension. If Elsa is the ice, then I am this storm and these clouds, I am the lightning and I am the hurricane, this water doesn’t rock until I command it to, this earth doesn’t move until I demand it to. 

And poor, poor earth, I demand everything. I leap, springing through the air, grasping at the lightning, clutching it like it is no more than a pillar, feeling none of its sting. No, rather than wince, I swing from one tendril to another, shooting bolts into each place I need, as I need them. I grip the violence and the volatility and the decay in my own hands and I cling to it, chomping my teeth together, eyes huge, expecting to fall and fumble at any moment. 

But I don’t, not me. I hurdle myself to the next bolt and the next and I don’t stop and nothing dares stop me. This world knows better. I’m no fifth spirit and I’m no queen, but I know better too, I am better too. I’m not the helpless girl from Radiant Garden, I’m not the ice cold bitch from Transmute City, I’m not the prisoner from the World That Never Was. I’m not the basket case from Twilight Town.

I am a nomad, I am the alchemist, and how dare I forget this? I lunge forward again and this bolt propels me right down onto--

Hot damn, onto a horse. Elsa grunts, so do I, but I twine my arms around her waist, slick, salty air tangles into our hair and we laugh, her holding the horse made of water and me holding her, the two of us elated and a little bit silly.

“That was wild!” I throw my head back. “Did you turn the water into a horse?”

“No, no, I just tamed the spirit.” Elsa shakes her head, but I howl louder.

“You tamed a freaking spirit!” I applaud. 

“You rode lightning!” She reminds me, my palms still tingle. “Oh! Rueki, look!” Elsa taps my leg with her foot. I crane to the side, eyes hungry when I find some sort of ice mass. “Glaciers are rivers of ice. Atohallan is frozen.” She breathes.

“Well tell this spirit we can hear it and we’re coming.” I squeeze her sides.

\--

Deep in a glacial cavern, Elsa and I find and lose track of each other so many times, I can hardly keep up, winding and whispering through sculptures, created from the glacier itself, from memories that neither of us can deny.

Through caverns I hear the gentlest of whispers, promises of anything I could ever want to hear. The sweetest brush of icy air caresses my fingertips and sculptures of Yuffie and I solidify, our laughter echoes through the air so loud, I’m convinced Elsa has got to hear it, but she doesn’t strive to find me, doesn’t search, and a grip I’m all too familiar with, something different but so similar to heart and soul, compels me.

‘I don’t think you need a prince charming. I think you’ll always find a way to save the day by yourself.’ I search, but nothing comes to life of Ventus, though his words echo in my head.

And then my own voice, so much younger, but mine nonetheless.

‘I don’t really like hanging out with stupid people. It’s not fun.’

‘No, it’s not. Maybe you’re just destined for bigger and better things.’ There’s Braig or Luxu or Xigbar sounding like he hasn’t aged a day, and sculptures of us form, me with something in my hands, seated on the ground, him hunched over to meet my eyes. My heart stills just a moment. I remember this, I think. Scarcely, for he only restored this moment last year, and there’s a whole cacophony of feeling swirling around this instance. The day he cast his protection spell, the moment that propelled him to gift me the book of fairytales, the second that I stopped being a know it all little girl and became something else. He chose me as much as the Master did, but although I am conflicted, I’m not animous. Not after what I just did, not after what they are allowing me to become, the shackles so thoroughly cast aside as I save these women and girls from fates forced upon them. Though Elsa hardly needs saving.

And fuck, if Xigbar hasn’t aged like fine wine, Braig was a snack, but the man I know now is a whole damn meal. I’m not thinking about that though, I’m definitely not thinking about that.

Surely not when I hear my voice again, wailing through the cavern. 

‘Lea, no! Don’t leave me, Lea!’ My tongue goes bone dry. Oh no, I know this moment and I can’t handle looking at it, I sprint away from him bleeding and dying in my young arms, so much--too much-- like Betwixt and Between, me begging and pleading and him ever the self sacrificing bastard and what I wouldn’t give for him to sacrifice his own masochism for me, just once, just once in my life if he could cast aside heroics and run from our own aftershocks with me I would be content. Maybe if I could show him this, maybe if I could remind him that my fear is valid because his martyrdom is constant. 

The ice swirls and wipes so much out, but replaces, rebuilds. I catch sight of Elsa, gazing eagerly at something in the air, her hair down, tears streaming from her cheeks, but sculptures of Del and Amaya and I come to life, of me holding Del’s hair back after he got drunk and puked in the river, of Amaya and I, leaning toward each other, me tucking her pretty dark hair aside, ready to savor in the glory of a short lived first kiss, a memory that no even Del knows about. The three of us clutching each other for dear life after opening up the Gummi Shop, the sound of our cheers ringing like a bell in the air. My arms twined around Del’s neck, Amaya’s twined around his neck.

All at once, the snow starts to glitter, a glistening masterpiece and it isn’t lost on me what this implies. My world is technicolor, I’m in the library in the World That Never Was pressed between a gorgeous creature and a bookshelf and I catch myself reaching out for him, almost as if, if I can touch him, I can freeze this moment, I can be the Rueki there, pinned only to all that man is.

‘Do you want me to?” He asks, voice low and husky and my heart cracks. Do I want you to what? Beg me to come home hard enough to convince me? Leave our lives behind? Travel back in time to moments like these when my own cynicism was our only enemy? Love and cherish and offer me forgiveness for having to leave his side to rebuild the world that has been nothing but cruel to us? Yes to each and every one and I feel the ache, throbbing in the back of my heart, thrumming and unable to be ignored, like a rotting tooth.

So many more scenes replay, me shoving him away from the Shark Noise in Shibuya, ice cream on the clock tower with Roxas and Xion, mouthing off to Saix, lifetimes spent in Axel’s arms and still not long enough, somehow.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Not a damn thing’. I’m warmed from head to toe until the silhouette of me, holding him, once again on his deathbed, in Betwixt and Between, forms.

There’s a miserable pattern in the snow, in the memories as they flood my heart. The snow will not shimmer if Lea isn’t at my side. Neither Kairi nor Roxas nor Del nor Amaya can possibly come close to the way he lights up my heart, my mind.

I see myself handing his ring back to him, my knees start to shake.

“Rueki!” Elsa’s voice evaporates the snow around me, tears have frozen like icicles to my cheeks and are easier to peel away. There she stands, mere feet away, but clearly having experienced something different from I. 

“I want to see more, I want to see it all from his heart, I have to.” I choke, clutching my chest. Elsa grabs the tops of my arms and gives me a little shake, bringing me back to reality.

“Rueki, we’re reaching the edge, you can’t come with me this far.” She shakes her head.

“But I have to!” And I’m convinced if I follow her I can watch my soul, our soul, watch him pull me out of the wreckage of my ship, watch him speculate with Cid about my ring, watch him defend me behind my back like he swore he did. 

Oh my love, I need into his heart so desperately, just to feel close to him, just to have this deeply voyeuristic connection, just to feel like we still have something. 

“Rueki, if you go further, you’ll drown.” Elsa jerks me, and I nod pathetically, but I’m hardly comprehending it. Do I care? Is drowning so bad? Would it really be a problem if this heavenly chase marked my end?

But yes, yes it would, I think. At least, that’s why I’m doing this, chasing a victory, rebuilding something impossibly difficult. Because I don’t want to die and I don’t want to live in a world where I feel like I’m supposed to.

“What about you?” I ask.

“Water and ice are one in the same. I’ll be fine. Give me some time to search, in the meantime, go find Anna. Just check on her for me, please. All I need is a little bit of time.” Elsa insists. I can see my breath.

Okay. Okay, she does need time. And didn’t I promise her I wouldn’t stop her? I remember feeling too many hands on me, pulling me back and I know I cannot do the same to her. Not when trust is all she’s ever asked of me. 

“Okay.” I take her hands into mine and squeeze them. “Okay, but I am coming back for you.”

“And when you do, my light is yours.” Elsa assures me, squeezing me back. “Please, just make sure Anna is okay.”

And I will and I plan to, but when I exit the glacier, a portal of light opens up, and I know now is the time I’m supposed to go through it. 

I tumble through the portal, staggering, feeling dizzy and disoriented and drunk as hell as I’m in Arendelle one second and Daybreak Town the next. A pair of hands catch my wrists, my hands plant on an incredibly solid chest and I breathe a sigh of relief and disappointment as lights stop swirling around my head and I come to grips with reality, clutching Xigbar tight. My mouth tingles, my limbs buzz pleasantly. I don’t think I want to let him go. No when I’m feeling this stupid and he’s holding me so tight. My heart hammers, and I feel it reverberate in his own heart, like we’re connected by a wire.

This feels...right… I decide, rolling the taste of that around my mind, contemplating what this means and how I’m supposed to--

The haze starts to ebb and I’m much less drunk on emotion, logic causing me to jerk my arms back and clear my throat. What the actual fuck?

“Did you...do something to me?” I lift an eyebrow.

“As if, what would I have done to you, kiddo?” He asks.

“I’ve traveled by light, but that felt a little more like being high on something.” I wrinkle my nose and he barks out a laugh.

“And you have so much experience with that?” He teases, so I flip him off. Fuck me for being such a square. “Who’s moved you with light before? Ludor?” He asks.

“And Merlin too…” Or was it Yen Sid? Fuck, these tingles linger and then some, leaving me hyper warm and struggling with the wiring of my own mind. “This is like what you did in the Keyblade Graveyard, right?”

“Well, I’m made of light, aren’t I?” He asks, and yes, I suppose so. “What I can do to you is a little more intense than what anyone else can.” My belly button yanks those words straight up into my throat. Well, shit. 

“Yeah, I guess so.” I blink. “It feels good.” Like really good, like chasing clouds and dancing on rainbows. What a shot of this could do to me...

“Light usually does. Why do you think the realm does better bathed in it?” He asks. “It sure is hella easy to overuse though, I tell you what. If I actually gave you a shot of the stuff, it would damn well break out.”

“Then what did you do in the Graveyard?” I ask, slowly starting to peel myself from the clouds, drifting down little by little.

“Oh, that? That was just a baby dose. Like the the tiniest little shock. Something like that is only a bandaid for your heart. Just something stave off a little meltdown.” He tells me, breezily, but I don’t hear a cautionary tale, not at all.

“You have got to give me more of that.” I demand, gripping him by his coat. He fumbles, but recovers just as quickly, fingers skimming over my knuckles.

“What do you want, little Rueki?” He teases, in a voice that shoots chills from head to toe, prickling my spine, seizing my lungs. He is pitch black in the light and I am reeling but I need more. 

“You kept me from having a meltdown. I need that. Like, regular doses of that.” I insist, trying and failing to hide my hummingbird heart and staggered breath. I should know better than to think that anything inside me can be a secret kept from him.

“Did you not hear me say it’s easy to overuse? I don’t think you’d be too happy with me if you knew what the actual effects looked like.” He rolls his visible eye, but it catches quickly on the tremble of my lip. “Fuck, kid, looking at me like that isn’t gonna make me change my mind.” But I disagree. I think if I press my hips into his and murmur a plea at the base of his neck, I can change his mind. 

But I hear footsteps starting up and fly away from him as fast as I tumbled toward him, face bright red. Okay, Rueki, I remind myself, you’re allowed to be a hot mess. But maybe I can be a hot mess and not try to dry hump someone who isn’t my husband in the middle of a public hallway, dear fucking Twilight, why can’t I just have a good cry and get over my bullshit like a normal fucking person.

The owner of said footsteps has me thankful as hell for my over alertness. I cannot possibly imagine what Elrena might have said if she saw me clinging to Xigbar. Especially after this morning. We lock eyes, she cocks her head to the side and at this proximity, I watch her shoulders soften. Weird.

“But uh, I’m not opposed to fixing all that damn rain checking you’ve been doing. You still can’t navigate your way around anything outside of this castle, can you? There’s still enough daylight left for me to actually show you around and maybe teach out how to light travel.” Xigbar offers. 

“She’s got plans, don’t you bottom feeder?” Elrena asks and I wince on the nickname.

“I guess so.” Because I get the feeling saying no to her is not what I’m supposed to do, especially since I’ve clearly proven to myself that I’m still a little too loopy to be trusted around Xigbar. “What are our plans again?” I ask.

“We’re going to spar, because you let Vanitas kick your ass the other day, I mean someone needs to whip you into shape.” She taunts. “So you can find some other barely legal girl to creep on, mkay?” She twiddles her fingers at Xigbar, who just sneers in her direction and turns to me.

“Guess I’ll be seeing you bright and early then, little Rueki.” And he pats my head and teleports away. In the stillness of his absence, Elrena takes several steps in my direction.

“So you’re talking to him again.” She announces.

“I am.” I nod. “I tried to fight him the other day, so I think this means we’re good on the short term?” I’m not really sure to be honest, but what I do know is that it’s easier to get up when he’s at the foot of my bed with praises and promises, distracting me from texts I shouldn’t read from a man that it’s killing me to fixate on mine.

“Oh, I heard. Ira had a lot to say about that. He’s not a fan of you, by the way. Thinks you have zero class or tact.” She informs me, as though I couldn’t pick up on the not so subtle clues an unsocialized bunch have offered me.

“I don’t think any of the others like me. I think they’d prefer someone more like Lauriam or Ludor at the forefront of all of this.” I suggest and she nods.

“Probably. People don’t like women that mouth off.” I’m not surprised that she can give a big fat old ‘me too’ to that. 

“Too bad they couldn’t get a big strong hero who knows how to shut his mouth.” I say.

“Instead, they get a self destructive garbage can.” She tease, smirking just a little, and once more, I get the distinct impression that she’s altogether surpassing the making nice phase and has moved onto the not so playful jabbing phase of friendship. 

“The asshole that no one likes.” I correct. She snickers, confirming my suspicions. 

“So, what is it about him?” She lifts an eyebrow. I know who she’s referring to, despite her vagueness. “Axel is your soulmate, he kept that from you.”

“Me settling on him now is me settling on him now. It’s nothing more permanent than that.” It sounds callous, me saying it aloud, but it doesn’t make it any less apt to how I feel. I like the distraction that Xigbar brings, despite the toxicity that accompanies him, I’m not planning to cut him off. But I also wouldn’t trade Lea in for him, not if my life depended on it. 

“Your track record is not great when it comes to the whole ‘no one’s heart is getting broke’ thing.” She reminds me. “All I’m saying is, it would be super embarrassing to have Xigbar be the one responsible for breaking your heart.”

“Even for a bottom feeder.” I trail off as silence drapes across us, like a blanket, heavy and comfortable. The two of us stand there staring at each other, I don’t know that either of us necessarily know what we’re supposed to do. “I’m just...I’m not banking on this situation being permanent. I’m going home to Lea when this is all done, Xigbar’s fun to flirt with, but that’s all he’s got going for him and that’s all this is ever going to be.” He’s a quick fix to a situation I’m committed to but a life I’m not. I think I should feel absolved in this way, thinking so lightly of him, but I’m left with just as much but a different kind of guilt. 

“Good.” She says flatly. “Because he isn’t Axel. He’s not your soulmate, the second you forget that, the second you slip up is the moment he slips in. And I know you really don’t have a reason to trust me and that we’re really not friends but… don’t be your usual idiot self. Listen to advice, because I’m telling you right now, nothing smarts more than letting some sweet talker who promises you the world into your bed just so you can feel half as satisfied and twice as used.”

I don’t hear her insinuating Xigbar or Lauriam or Marluxia are unsatisfying in bed, I don’t hear her implying there’s anything wrong with casual sex. I hear unspoken truths that she won’t admit and I can’t fully guess but I think we both understand. We can both chase a forbidden fruit until our legs give out, but when you’ve had the real thing, you know the difference between it and plastic.

“I know I’m a mess, but trust me when I say, Xigbar’s only biting off as much of me as I give him to chew.” 

“That is a gross metaphor.” She says flatly. I smirk.

“Well maybe what I should have said, then, is that Axel led me on a leash in another life. He changed, so did I. It’ll be a cold day before I trust another pair of hands than my own.” I try. She cocks her head to the side, eyes ice cold even in the impasse at which she regards me.

“I don’t disagree with you there.” She says, but I’ve got a sinking suspicion about what she’s thinking and I’m almost certain she’s going to need me to voice it for her.

“But, alternatively, there’s something to be said about solidarity.” Because despite this not being my permanent life, despite this being a means to an end, I do like this moment, this instance, right now. I know she does too.

“Sure. We vile creatures have to stick together.” She shrugs.

“Vile creatures?” I snort as we start now, finally, on our way toward the training grounds. She laughs a high, teasing laugh and throws a heavy lidded gaze my way. 

“Sorry, would you prefer nasty women whose idea of a happy ending is a quick death?” She asks.

I don’t, and I don’t even okay that with a response.


	31. Chapter 31

XXX.

The brush of a hand against my cheek soothes me from slumber. Eagerly, without even opening my eyes, I grip it, pressing the palm to my face, savoring the way leather feels against my skin, the way warmth of another body feels. For just an instant, I’m home and Lea and I haven’t been fighting and it’s just us, resting in the afterglow of an early morning after a night spent sweltering in each other’s arms. 

It’s only an instant, subconsciously, I know this hand isn’t warm enough, I know the touch isn’t right, I know what I’m in for, but that hardly makes it any less painful when my eyes flutter open. 

“You don’t know boundaries at all, do you?” I ask, voice heavy and sluggish with sleep, but Xigbar hardly has the same setbacks, chuckling softly as he pushes hair back from my face. 

“I’ve been trying to wake you for fifteen minutes, someone’s been sleeping like a bear.” He accuses. I don’t tell him that I’ve been chugging sleeping droughts like my life depends on it, I’m sure neither of us need the reminder of what isn’t right about this fairy tale so carefully ruined.

“I still have to finish things up in Arendelle, you know. I’d probably be okay to sleep a little longer.” I whine.

“I’m not here to collect you for that, kiddo.” He informs me. “You’re unreliable as all hell in the evenings, and like hell if you’re not struggling with light travel.” 

“You woke me up to teach me how to open a portal?” I laugh lazily, a languid little sound as I rub my eyes. My phone buzzes on my nightstand. My teeth drag across my lips.

Oh, Lea.

Xigbar clears his throat, and it’s probably better that we’re both invested in ignoring the sound. Someone who forces me not to feel my feelings is remarkably refreshing when I’ve got the same goals in mind. 

“Well, someone’s gotta step up and get you into gear, right?” He asks. “As if I’d let my Union Leader be the only one who can’t transport herself, I mean besides, I’ve got shit to do too, I can’t always be at your beck and call.” He taps me on the nose and I wrap myself tightly in the possession he uses as he calls me his Union Leader, because it does feel awfully like belonging. It really isn’t so bad.

“And it has nothing to do with you trying to cop a feel while I’m conked out?” I lift an eyebrow. At this, the nastiest little growl of a laugh bubbles up from his throat. He pushes my hair bac and sets an elbow on my pillow, beside my head. Oh, how his lips just graze the shell of my ear, there is no denying the way my insides backflip. This, I think is the appeal that Xigbar could have. Not the gentleness, not the way he wants to own me, but the way he can get me twisted, drawn tight as hell with the faintest of touches. 

“Oh, kiddo, there’d be no fun in that? What’s the point in trying to make you dance if you’re not screaming for me?” Oh fuck. This man knows what he’s doing.,,

With my mom, he knew what he was doing with my mom, he banged my mom and I’m going to keep thinking that until my horomones can settle the fuck down, dear Twilight. It’s not his fault that I feel touch starved, but I would be ignorant as hell to think that he wasn’t going to use that to every bit of his advantage.

I press my hands to his chest, not thinking about how solid he feels against my touch, definitely not thinking about that as I push him off of me. 

“Well then get out of my room so I can take a shower and get ready.” I push myself up after he’s sufficiently off of me and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “If you woke my ass up early, I have no excuse to not be decent and ready to go when we’re done.” 

“Sure, sure.” He agrees. “And hey, if you need someone to hit the showers with you--”

I don’t think either of us are surprised when I punch him.

“Oooh, only about half as much venom as last time.” Fucking prick, I should have hit him harder.

“Don’t make me kick you in the balls man, ask Vanitas, I’m good for it.” 

\--

By the time I’m properly put together, Xigbar’s waiting for me on the grounds where me and the other Union Leaders have been training on, leaning back on a bench, book cracked open on his lap.

“Didn’t know you knew how to read.” I greet him, anticipating his eye roll. He turns, leaning back on one of his hands, casting me a sideways sort of look.

“I read better than you dress, little Rueki, you need new clothes.” He tells me, and he’s probably right, but the singed shirt I’m wearing is still the only thing here with long enough sleeves to make Arendelle tolerable. 

“That’s a problem for when I go to Shibuya, they’ve got much better shopping than anywhere else I’ve ever been.” I explain.

“You hardly strike me as a fashionista.” He snorts.

“No, but my friend Shiki is and she has a weird dress up fixation when it comes to me, it’d basically be super rude if I didn’t indulge her.” I confess.

“So you think Shibuya is going to go so smoothly that you’ll have tons of free time to play with your friends afterward?” He scoffs. 

“Sector 17, Area 51 did. Besides, if I have to lose all of my friends in this process I’m probably going to lose my mind. I’ll make shopping happen, just to keep those guys around.” I say stubbornly. 

“No need for claws, you do your shopping.” He waves a hand, like it’s hardly anything he wants to concern himself and is so blandly human, it’s beneath him. Not every guy in the world can be excited and give actual feedback about things I try on, in between doing photoshoots of me and my best friend and doing face masks and playing video games with me, I guess. “Though speaking of claws and friends, what’s with you and Elrena?”

“Well, she hates you, and I think she thinks that effectively cock blocking you will make her feel better about her life.” I explain. “You could stand to lay the fuck off her, she’s clearly pretty distraught, and whoever her soulmate is, she’s obviously not with them, she’s in pain enough without you stirring shit.” Or without me flaunting mine in her face and how I walked away from him like it was easy, like I could so freely.

“I’m not interested in a girl power lecture, and we don’t really have time for it.” He reaches up to pat my cheek condescendingly, so I zap him, just for good measure. “Fuck, you know you don’t always need to do that.”

“Oh, but you don’t learn if I don’t.” I press my lips. He wants to be a cunt, I can too.

“Alright, sure I won’t go out of my way to antagonize your little best friend, happy?” He asks and I snicker.

“I don’t think she’s my friend, there’s just...an impasse right now, so to speak.” I explain.

“Oh an impasse?” He raises an eyebrow. “What, you two reach some sort of agreement that you’ll just bang each other instead of being sad?”

“Mmm, don’t I wish. No, it’s more just that she’s only going to be medium mean to me now and in exchange, she gets to vent to me and commandeer as much or little time from me as she wants, it’s a win-win.” I explain. 

“So you get to be her punching bag?” He scoffs.

“Only sometimes.” I wave a hand. “Look, if we’re both actually cordial and she doesn’t go off on me about how big of a piece of trash I am for leaving Lea, then I’ll take that, alright? I feel stupid and guilty and unsure as hell, so yeah, in order to not have that rubbed in my face, I’ll take a damn punch.” I snap. He wavers, almost a freeze frame of himself, too rigid to move, to reply.

“Why do you keep stalling me, we’ve gotta teach you how to light travel.” Xigbar waves a quick hand and my eyes go huge, but I follow after him, through pillars at the opposite end of the field, counting each massive stride I have to take to keep up with him, rather than actually thinking, because it’s so much easier and if I can just keep my brain blank on the short term, I trust that he’ll wipe it clean by time he’s done being pissed at me for loving the person I’ve never been dishonest about being in love with. 

We cut through more pillars and some sort of passageway, him trying his damndest to lose me every step of the way, and I’m certain it’s because he loves the reversal of roles, the way it’s so demented and strange for me to chase after him, even if it’s like this, even at this extent. 

Look at us, I think, the way we settle for cheap victories with each other, because we can pretend they taste half as filling as the real thing.

We break out into actual daylight again and the breath is ripped straight from my lungs, maybe from the entire world. I tumble forward, he catches me and I actually squeeze his hand, eyes bugged out, jaw dropped. 

How many nights have I watched a sunset with no one reminding me how beautiful a sunrise can be? How could I have appreciated it as a little girl in Radiant Garden, how could I savor it in Transmute City or the World That Never Was, where everything was pitch black or under constant cloud cover? I know I ignored it in Twilight Town, either rising well before or well after the sun, but could it possibly look this majestic there? There’s something beyond captivating about the pastel haze smeared across the sky, carefree in the clouds, twinkling in each glistening ray that peeks out.

“Holy shit.” I spit, he chuckles.

“Right?” He asks. And it’s not the majesty of the blazing sky as the sun hangs, low and heavy about to set, and I won’t say it’s better or worse, but it’s different and brilliant all in the same. I feel beautiful, I feel lighter, I feel somehow quite a bit younger, watching the world with wide eyed, untainted curiosity. 

“You've held out on me.” I accuse, breathlessly.

“Well, someone’s so stuck in what she’s left behind, she forgets what she’s walking toward, huh?” He asks, I can’t stumble toward an answer, instead, I stand by, marveling while his hand leaves mine but touches the curve of my waist, brushing the skin of my ribs through the cutout in my shirt. Oh, hell.

“We’re supposed to be light traveling.” I choke out, stupidly. 

“We can.” He assures me, through my shivering and I think that maybe right now, I do want to believe this is innocent and this is him just on his way to mentor me, and he just so happens to be flirty as hell. And maybe I am too, and it’s not like I haven’t always been this way with everyone, but why does this feel so different? Why am I trying to convince myself that this is anything other than cute, excitable banter? This doesn’t have to be different than the way I tease Roxas and Kairi about hooking up with them when they come of age, this doesn’t have to be different than the way I taunt Isa, mostly just to grind his gears, but low key to make Lea regret asking us to be cordial in the first place, so why does it feel so different? Why was this something Lea was genuinely worried about when he never worried about me traipsing off with anyone else? What sets this man apart so thoroughly? Why am I overanalyzing this just to freeze this moment and steal away the bliss of the way his hands are just ghosting along my skin?

Is it because this feels dangerous or because it feels heavenly, and what is my problem that I can’t sort out the two? All I do know is that I’m drunkenly dancing across broken glass here, and I know every step I take, no matter how delicious, is going to destroy me when I’m done riding out the high.

“Xigbar…” I protest.

“Luxu.” He corrects, voice low and gravely and my stupid ass is gripping the side of his coat for dear life.

“Xigbar, I’m married.” But so was my mom and he still screwed my mom, he screwed my mom, he thought he was my dad for a brief period, fuck, I have a damn problem. I tear myself away finally, hating the shiver in my shoulders and how smooth he is. My face is bright red, he crosses his arms to his chest and just lifts an eyebrow.

“What’s the deal, kiddo? I was just trying to keep you steady, looked like that sunrise was about to knock you off your feet.” He teases.

“You’re an actual rat bastard.” I remind him.

“Ohh, don’t you remember little Rueki? Doesn’t count if there isn’t enough venom.” He pats the top of my head. “Now what is your deal, all you do is manage to get distracted, here I am, just trying to teach you how to actually light travel, come on.”

And he does a shitty, half assed attempt at teaching me, the best advice he’s capable of is ‘come on, you can feel the light, try harder kiddo’, and I think if I hear that one more time, I might consider biting him. 

I’m lying sprawled in the grass, huffy and irritated and unsuccessful, whining as I wave a hand out next to me.

“Try harder.” He tells me, I flip him off. 

“This isn’t fun.” I pout.

“And who was it that circumvented any attempts at fun?” He teases.

“Did you learn that word in that book you were reading today, man you’re growing up so fast.” I roll my eyes, still unsettled with him and the way he relentlessly chases. Or, maybe I’m upset that I do very little running, and I’m constantly good for that. Well, maybe I’m not, I consider. Axel, Lea, obviously that makes sense why we banged it out after knowing each other for like fifteen seconds, I mean between my desperation to convince myself that I was capable of feeling and his insatiable longing for a heart, it does make sense without even considering the fact that our stupid damn souls were probably attracted like magnents. 

Maybe what I’m bugging out about Xigbar for, is how similar it feels, maybe it’s not just about me sorting out if I’m allowed to not be mad at him or if I’m allowed to enjoy time with him, harmlessly. Maybe what’s so damn distressing to me is the way we’re coming together just the same as Lea and I did, instantaneously, impossibly drawn, even when he was my enemy, even when he was just some douche who made me puke in Wonderland. There was a tug and an intrigue and I feel so scared and so excited exploring it now, but how far do I go, how do I know if I’m going too far without Anna--without Kairi, fuck what’s my mind doing? How do I convince myself not to follow the same path, how do I not let myself disappear under all the distraction he offers when I want it to?

I want Lea, I love Lea, and our distance will be short term, I remind myself. When this is over, it’ll have been maybe only a few months, but certainly no more than a year, and when we find our way back to each other, when the realm is light and good and pure and he forgives me I’m going to say I never moved on, I’m going to say there was never a time that I loved him less than I loved forgetting how bad I missed him, beneath any body I could find.

I could be with Xigbar, and I do think it would be easier than breathing and more exhilarating than any spell I could cast. But the fact of the matter is that every second of everything I’ve ever had with Lea will be sweeter than riding the storm that is the man standing above me. I’m allowed to be recklessly attracted to someone, which is something I actually have not felt so extremely before or since Lea, until now. Of course I don’t know how to handle it. What a fucking mess I am. A depraved, sexually starving mess. 

“Well, this has been all good and dandy, but maybe I’m a fucking awesome pilot for a reason, um if you wouldn’t mind opening up the barrier for me, I’ll take my ship to Arendelle.” I say, expectantly and he barks out a laugh.

“And you’re going to find a great spot to land it, where?” He lifts an eyebrow.

“Alright, fuck yourself, you win. Open up a portal, we’ll go at this again tomorrow.” I roll my eyes.

“Maybe you should stop getting in your own damn head, there is such a thing as convincing yourself that you’re too damn stubborn to succeed.” He offers. My mouth twist, I think of Kairi’s light, spinning eagerly around me, of the way I felt so breathless and light hearted exploring Scala ad Caelum with Ventus, I think of Lilo and Anna and Elsa and my brief interaction with Rhyme and that chief’s daughter from Motonui and the way they all shined. I focus on that, letting the thoughts spiral and centralize and I wave my hand. Ope, surprise, a whole not of nothing. “Fine kiddo, you win, tomorrow.”

He waves his hand and doesn’t even wait for me to sit up properly. I shriek as I fall straight through the hole beneath me. 

And what I fall into is pitch black. Right away, I think he’s fucking with me. This absolutely has to be some sort of twisted prank meant for his benefit, because this is nothing like the crisp, warm colored forest I found my way into or the icy, glittering glaciers that Elsa and I explored. No, what this is, is dark and cold and oppressing. There’s something sterile in the air, I’m in Ahch-To, I’m quickly convinced, eyes fleeting, desperate for any source that might cut through the blackness. 

But then I hear it. The softest, most broken whimper of a noise. It’s like the air grows static as I hear that shattered little hiccup. My eyes search the ground below me, which is hard as hell to do, when I’m dizzy as all fuck thanks to Xigbar’s portal and can’t see for shit, but eventually I make out some sort of branch on the ground and cast a quick fire spell on it. It blazes, lights the cavern with its ignition, and in the distance, I make out a shock of ginger hair. Heaving shoulders, fair skin, simultaneously flushed and sallow.

“Shit, Anna!?” I call, as I chase into the blackness. She springs up almost instantly, helping me close the distance, both of us fumbling and unsteady but for obviously different reasons.

“Rueki!” She cries out, launching herself across the darkness and into my arms. I stumble, trying desperately to keep the flame steady in one hand while clutching her tight with the other arm, because she very obviously needs this. She’s choking down this miserable sob that she can’t seem to manage to stifle, so I just hold her steady and hope that this is what she needs because this is all I have to give. 

“You okay, dude?” I ask her, though we both know she isn’t but if I know Kairi and if these two are anything alike, I know how bad she’ll need to let it out. And she does, without failing, she shakes her head into my shoulder, the skin of which is damp with her tears. “Do you wanna tell me what happened or do you need time?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” She sputters, though it is quite obviously not. “It’s just… I’m really, really glad to see you, but right now you’re completely shouldering my bright side.” She tries her hand at laughing as she pulls away from me, wiping tears from her freckled cheeks with both hands. 

“I’m a really awful bright side, hun.” I laugh, though I tuck her hair behind her ears from where it hangs in her face, mostly because in this moment, I do see my ginger and want nothing more than to reach out to her, to take back the way I made her feel, to discuss and forgive what she made me feel. Damn, we were so close and the second she came back I just had to put distance between us, didn’t I? Am I really so afraid of pain, because that act feels nothing shy of masochistic.

“Elsa’s gone. Olaf too.” Anna sniffles, abruptly, my blood goes cold, my arms are rigid from where I reach out to her.

“No.” I shake my head. “No, she’s not gone, she can’t be gone.” The Master would know that, right? Xigbar would have told me if I only had one Princess left in this world, someone would have warned me, and Elsa, she was so sure that she could go further, that the glacier was something well within her realm of capabilities. She promised Anna and Olaf. She promised me. I start shaking, my eyes are burning, my chest is tight, holy fuck I cannot hold it together. I knew this woman for twenty four hours, what the fuck am I doing, how I can I not push that aside, can’t I stop being selfish for a second, her sister obviously needs a friend right now, what the fuck is my problem?

I know the answer to that and it’s depressing as hell. She’s another person for me to lose, another light washed away from my life, my world, my heart. Someone pure and made of light, someone I did care about and was hyper invested in for the short window of time I knew her, because that someone seemed so much like me, it was surreal. Without the chains around her wrists, Elsa died, what does that say about me? About the grim reality of my future? I want my ship, I want to go home, maybe Anna and I can find Lea and Kairi and they’ll gladly lock me away where my own delusions cannot get the best of me. 

No, no, no, I stop myself. No, this is different, this is not me straying into a place where I can drown, this is not an enchanted forest and I am far more weathered and experienced than Elsa, this is not going to end the same for me. Or at least, that’s damn well what I’m going to tell myself as I stand opposite the woman’s sister and know whether or not she breaks is in my hands. 

“She gave her life for the truth, Rueki. Olaf was proof of that, he was created by her magic, he stopped existing when it did.” Anna counters.

“Oh hell.” Fuck not cursing. I toss the torch to the ground, letting the cavern go black around us as I throw my arms back around Anna and pull her in tight for her and for me and because if I am someone’s silver lining I better learn how to do a damn good job of that on the fly. “Oh Anna, I am so sorry.”

“We can’t stop here, Rueki.” She shakes her head. “Not with what Elsa did for us, what she gave us was one last gift, we can’t take that for granted.”

“You’re made of titanium, girl.” I squeeze her once more and she squeezes me back before letting go, giggling.

“Maybe it’s my light.” She offers.

“Anna…” I trail off, but she puts her hand up to stop me.

“Rueki, I can’t coast by on not feeling this for my entire life. Whatever happens, it needs to be real. Just like my parents death was. I still agree with you, and your light is still mine, for Arendelle. Me not granting you that would be just as much a disrespect to Elsa’s dying act as curling up and crying here… I just… I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.” Anna’s voice starts to tremble, so I grab her hand.

“Well, for now, you’re right, we’ve gotta get out of this cave.” I suggest. From where we stand, there’s more light than where Xigbar dropped me off at, but not by much.

“Yeah.” She nods, hesitantly. “The next right thing.” And it’s so simple but so profound. Stand when it’s all you can do, speak when you can barely form words, crawl out of the dark and rest in the victory of the baby steps when those are all you have. Can I really steal her light, even if she wants to bear the reality of the situation? Is she surviving on her inability to break or is she just made of something stronger than me? “There’s a dam on the other side of the forest, I need to break it.”

“Do you have any idea how we’re supposed to break a dam?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow. “I mean, I can try a combination of spells, but that’s not really something I’ve ever tried.”

“Oh, no, Rueki, I know the way.” She tells me and holy fuck, is this girl incapable of nothing? She has plotted a victory while grieving? Here I am, unable to sleep half the time, unable to trust myself the other, and for what? So I can say every move was perfectly calculated, when there’s a woman beside me thinking on the fly, trusting her own intuition like it’s all she has? It’s beyond beautiful, Anna is invigorating and inspiring. “Olaf and I passed earth giants on the way here, I need to wake them and lead them to the dam. It’ll be dangerous.” She warns me.

I nibble on my lower lip, cocking my head to the side as I look at her.

Protection spells leave traces, but there’s no way I’m leaving Anna defenseless, the same way Aqua couldn’t for Kairi. 

“I trust you on that, but will you trust me on something really quick?” I ask, hoping against all hell that I can do this.

“I trust you more than just real quick. We’re friends, Rueki.” I’m warmed from head to toe. I am on the right path, I am doing the right thing.

I should have done this for Elsa.

“Then stay safe, Anna.” And I push my consciousness, push my abilities, push the brightness from within me through my fingertips, until they’re tingling and vibrant, and I feel like my heart could envelope her. “Through anything, through everything, be okay.” I brush her temples, her eyes widen a little, a smile creeps sweetly across her face, she touches her heart, eyes darting from her hand to my eyes.

“Did you just…” She begins.

“Did you feel it?” I ask, anxiously. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.” I admit and we both laugh, actual, genuine laughs.

“Whatever it was, it felt good, like your heart was giving mine a hug. Is that what it was supposed to do?” She asks and to be honest, I don’t remember and Xigbar’s spell on me was so much more than my simple blessing cast upon her. It’s taxing, but only time will tell if I was actually effective. “I feel lucky.”

“Well, in case you’re not, I want you to have this.” I nab an Elixir out of my belt and hand it her way. “It’s super strong, like it’ll ruin your day, you’ll probably get really sick if you drink too much, like just enough for the tip of your tongue, I’m serious. But if something happens and you do get hurt, this will fix any and everything. I mean, you’ll scar up pretty good, I’m case in point there, but you’ll live.”

“Oh, Rueki!” Anna sighs, throwing her arms around me. “I thought you said you weren't a good bright side? She teases. 

“I’m really not. Remember, I’m a terrible monster that wants to steal your light.” I play right back and she laughs, taking a step back, arms spread wide.

“Well, take it now.” She says and my eyes go huge. “What? Get me out of this cave, and then get to wherever you need to go to protect Arendelle. I’d feel better knowing you were out doing the same thing. I think Elsa would feel good knowing that, too.”

“For Elsa then.” I nod, shakily, unsure how I could possibly do this, how I can rob her of what might be keeping her standing. But how I dare deny her an ability to choose, when I didn’t to her sister, someone I didn’t attempt to cast a protection spell on. I call my Keyblade to my hand, Anna’s eyes widen with curiosity, not fear, but I still feel like I need to explain myself. “Just gotta unlock your heart, it won’t hurt at all.”

“I told you, I trust you, Rueki.” She assures me. I nod once more, closing my eyes as I draw out her heart, reaching, sensing the light and pulling at it. Anna’s light isn’t quite the same as Lilo’s I find, in fact, it’s quite a bit easier to sense, though from her personality or maturity or from our connection, I’m not sure, but if Lilo’s light was a ball of yarn, Anna’s is already unraveled, waiting and ready. It comes easily and I stop exactly where I know I’m supposed to, my blade glowing, Anna still smiling.

“Was that all?” She asks.

“All you had to do.” I tell her

“Huh…” She contemplates. “You know, it’s funny… I think I feel better. I feel free.”

I sure hope so.

“Well, let’s get you actual free, how does that sound?” I ask, and with that, we teleport, off into the forest.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. I just want to preface this chapter by saying that I've gone back and forth in my head several times today about posting this chapter. I know for myself, escapism and fanfiction specifically can be a helpeful way to cope with real life, and so that is why I'm choosing to post today. If this comes across as tone deaf, please do not hesitate to let me know, I will pull the chapter and effectively put a halt to posting until June 7th, if that is what you guys would like me to do. I don't know that I've ever mentioned this, but I'm returning to school in August to get my degree in Social Work. My primary focus will be community outreach to special needs adults, but this being said, I'm taking this path because I understand something is very broken in the system, and as a CIS, white woman, I want to use my privelege to fix the system from within. My person socials have been muted until the 7th and I want you guys to be aware that this prewritten content, is coming from someone who is, right now, using their energy to protest, petition and donate whenever possible. My readers who are hurting, please know that you are not alone. And as I said, if you guys would prefer me to, I will remove this chapter and halt production until after the 7th. Kingdom Hearts is a game that has shown me, has shown all of us, no matter what our friends look like, no matter who they are or where they are, it is up to us to do better, be better and be there for them when they call out for us. I felt it was wrong not to address this before posting though, and while I'm not really sure how to close this out, I just wanted to extend my heart and my thoughts, to anyone else this is weighing heavily on, and anyone being more directly hurt by this. While I can never fully understand, I can see and I can try my hardest to help.

XXXI.

With Anna dropped off, and very careful teleportation, I do make it into the kingdom, though the place looks to be in shambles. Instead of torches burning bright and fountains flowing freely, the water is gone and the fire is out. Wind nearly tosses me back, and the ground is showing obvious signs that it is on the brink of caving in.

Still, this is easier to brave than potentially running into Lea and Kairi while tagging along with Anna. I take a purposeful stride, feeling the earth shake beneath me; a sudden gust knocks me back quicker than I can react to, in fact, if it weren’t for a nearby, empty fountain, I’d have gone crashing back who knows how far. My skin reddens, my face goes numb and I tuck my head down, gripping the fountain for dear life. There is a solution to this, maybe, but I need actual time to complete it and if this wind doesn’t give me some damn reprieve, I’m gonna end up clutching this fountain, waiting on Anna’s giants to…

To destroy this kingdom and drown me in their wake, like Elsa. I’m capable of magic, but I highly doubt any spell I conjure can conquer a tidal wave from the ruptured dam. 

“Okay, okay, fuck.” Is the pep talk I give myself before I yank, with every bit of strength in my upper body, propelling myself straight into the fountain. There’s no protection from the wind in here, I can feel the architecture crumbling beneath my ass, but as it stands, I just have to hope it holds out better than clinging to the edge. As quickly as I can manage, I tug two Healing Springs out of my belt. The wind tries to snatch the bottles but I hold onto them even tighter, pinching my eyes shut asI do. Okay, okay, let’s think quickly. And I do, my eyes fly open, I tuck the bottles between my thighs and pull a marker out of my belt. The wind abruptly grips the cap and tosses it to the wayside, I groan. “Asshole.” I whisper, at the wind, which says remarkable things about my sanity, I’m sure. Still, I have enough time to scribble on my hands, a transmutation circle on each of my palms before the wind seizes the marker and I grin. Too late, wind. Dear Twilight I'm insane. I take the vials from between my legs, one in each hand and smash them together. 

The sound of them clattering is muffled by the wind. The fountain breaks down beneath me, and as my transmutation swirls in the air around me, I skuttle to my feet, staggering out of the fountain just in time to watch the earth devour it.

The wind doesn’t roar so loud, it’s tangible, as is the sinking of the earth beneath my feet, but thanks to the Ultra NullAll that I synthesized, I can move against it as though this magic wind is nothing more than a gentle breeze. And move, I do. As quickly as I possibly can, racing l around the kingdom, searching for the Keyhole. I call Backbiter into my hands, head twisting every which way. Keyhole, Keyhole, how did Sora find the Keyholes in any of the worlds he’s traveled to, how did Ludor and I find the Keyhole in Sector 17, Area 51? 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, the earth quivers with every step I take, as though I’m standing on tissue paper, ever second I'm stationary is a chance for the earth to devour me.

Sora got lucky, the Keyholes revealed themselves to him. As far as Ludor and I went, Nani and Lilo told us about a place it seemed like a lot of the Heartless in their world seemed to stem from. We’ve seen so few Heartless though, in my time traveling with Anna, Elsa and Olaf, but technically we weren’t within the kingdom of Arendelle, but technically--

The earth gives way beneath my feet, I scream, leaping as high as I can, grabbing the edge of the crumbling ground so that I can pull myself up and out, panting desperately as I do. Okay, clearly I don’t have time to go searching for Heartless.

But I see claws scraping toward me, and strange Heartless shaped like women, point umbrellas at me. These stupid fucks are drawn to the Keyblade, how easy has it been to forget that when I haven’t had one? A smirk curls at the edges of my lips. This is gonna feel good, to hell with the earth falling apart below me and the nagging wind. 

The thing with the umbrella summons some sort of beam toward me, and I promptly leap over it, dash forward, twirl my Keyblade with one wrist and smash one side of blades into the Heartless, then the other, then the other, an unrelenting onslaught until the thing fades to black. I lunge at the Shadow that accompanied it, tearing it apart in two slashes. Watching with narrowed eyes, I see the heart release from the blackness. It flutters straight through the air into a massive building, a pillar at the edge of the kingdom. The palace. Of course, the biggest building with the most rooms to search in the entire kingdom. Fuck me, running sideways, with a rake. I grip Backbiter like the damn magical wind is going to jerk it away and go tearing through the streets of Arendelle, up toward the castle.

At least I know where I’m going, I tell myself, cutting through herds of Heartless that seem to come out of the woodwork, thanks to the emergence of my Keyblade. It’s a damn shame I don’t trust my magic to be functional when the elements are straight up working against me in the breakdown of this world. At least with magic, I could continue avoiding a flush of Heartless, half of which it seems like I have to leap over, just to get through.

Fuck, at least if I trusted my magic when the elements themselves are working against me, I could focus on crowd control. Something clicks into place in my mind. I’ve always been good at crowd control, that’s not uniquely a mage thing. I fish a grenade out of my pouch, throw it down in the depths of a cluster of Heartless and book it out, ignoring the claws on my skin and clothes. 

Behind me, an explosion cuts through the masses, and I cut through the throngs with so much resistance. A slash here, a slice there, my Keyblade’s a swiss army knife, it’s sharp, it’s strong, but what makes it mine, is that it’s quick on the draw, and even if it doesn’t take out the Heartless on the first go, it sure does hinder them enough for me to sneak through.

I make it through the doors of the palace with very little time to spare, the obvious effects of my Ultra NullAll are starting to wear off. Behind the doors, I hear the wind roar, the ground feels even less stable and I whine, crying out in frustration as I look around, eyes searching pathetically for Heartless. 

They’re not hard to find, coming out of the fucking woodwork in hoards, but I slash through one and brace myself with my guards as the others attack, watching where the heart disappears to. My eyes narrow as it disappears up the stairs, behind a set of double doors. 

“I really don’t have time for this.” I tell the Heartless, as if any of them could actually comprehend the words that leave my mouth. 

I slap down another handful of grenades and book it up the stairs, thighs burning, chest heaving, lungs on the verge of bursting. Okay, okay, okay, any obvious Keyholes? I look around, directing Backbiter toward any obvious spot in the floor or ceiling to no avail. 

“Fucking cunt.” I snap. As though I have called its name, one of those fucking princessy looking Heartles struts out, Umbrellla bared. 

If Lea were here he’d have something to say about the Heartless being as thick as me. Maybe I’m not missing him so terribly in this moment. No, I still am.

I tighten my hands on my Keyblade and take off after it, as it aims its laser at me. I land a blow, but so does the Heartless. It knocks me straight back, into some pillar and my eyes cross. If looks could kill, this bitch would burst. My midsection stings, whatever sort of dark magic that thing unleashed is brutal, possibly laced with poison, which would be about right. When I’m in a time crunch, why not be afflicted by something that drains the life rapidly from me?

I leap back up to my feet, not giving myself another moment to think about it before charging back at the bitch. She aims her umbrella to me and I stand still, shifting my weight back and forth until she unleashes her attack, at which point I tuck and roll, hitting as close to the ground as I can. When I come up, I’m close enough to slash, again and again and again, and fuck, she did afflict me with posion because each move slows my limbs, each move hurts my chest, I’m blinking back spots before she’s even gone, I’m going to fucking pass out, I--

The Heartless evaporates, I nearly forget I’m supposed to be watching for a heart, but when a glowing one appears in front of me and sinks into an otherwise plain spot in the ground, I’m at least thankful I stayed conscious this long. With spasming, weak limbs, I fumble around my pouch until I find a Remedy and sigh the second the thing passes my lips. Gross, but effective as all hell, I can see properly again. I can think and move, and with a clear head, I realize I hardly have time to waste. I aim my Keyblade at that same spot in the ground, watch as a Keyhole appears and leap into it. 

I move too quickly through the world’s heart to process exactly what it’s maze reminds me of. Somewhere, in the distant edges of my mind, I see icy whites and jewel tones, but I’m so hyper focused on setting orbs in different places, it’s all honestly just a bit of trial and error at this point. Maybe dissecting things would be easier if I took the time to decipher the riddle of this place, but I hardly have time for maybes. I hear the clicking of doors open at the far end of the heart and dash straight into it, bright and glowing as it hovers high and proud. I raise Backbiter, aiming and focusing. The light shoots out of my blade in a spurt, wrapping around the world’s heart, which trembles, much like it did in Sector 17, Area 51. The bright, gleaming pink of the heart turns into a serene, opalescent white and I could fall down on the ground right here.

Hopefully Anna gave me some damn time to get out of this place. I mean, I did my part, a little smooth sailing wouldn’t suck. 

Skidding out of the palace without Heartless at my tail is a lot easier than the alternative. What isn’t easy is skidding to the edge of the kingdom and watching the damn shatter. Well, physically it is, me staring there, arms limp, mouth agape, it really takes no effort. But the number it’s doing on my twisted mind isn’t grand.

Are you fucking kidding me? I’m panting and desperate and breathless, my magic isn’t in the best of shape at the edge of this place, about to fall apart, I’m not even sure how I’m managing to get out of here, but a pang of guilt keeps me rooted. The waters start to crash, Anna’s words ring in my head, I’m reminded of chasing the storm with Elsa.

Elsa did not die so that her Kingdom could be reduced to rubble. Why do I have to be such a damn martyr in the worst of times?

What a nightmare, I try and fail to assess the situation, and panic begins to pick up in my pulse points. What the hell am I thinking? I am not a strong enough swimmer to brave this. 

My heart literally clenches in my throat, I run through a thousand possibilities, do I cast a Reflect spell, do I try to fight this? Do I save my energy, lay back and take this and hope that when I’m washed up on shore I still have enough strength to breathe?

Shit, shit, shit, shit--

“Zero graviga!” I spit, instinctively, and am yanked, as though my a string coming from my navel, into the air, the clouds above are my ground, my legs are shaking, if I reach my hands above my head, I can touch the wave, oh dear Twilight, I have to do something, if I don’t Arendelle will be destroyed, and I made a promise to Anna. Elsa deserves better than to end with her efforts amounting to nothing. “That was my friend you took.” I whisper to the spirits, to the rushing water, to the prominent end of this kingdom, because that lack of gravity makes delusions of grandeur not seem so foolish, and here, queen of the clouds, I do feel capable of breaking this tide.

I suck in a breath, I let my energy rush into my hands, I feel it pool at the tip of my fingers. I am a hurricane, I remind myself. And with that, I shove, conjuring a spell like nothing I’ve ever seen.

“Waterja!” I feel the spell leave my body, seizing everything I have from inside of me. My eyes blow out, I start to fall as my own tidal wave bubbles, surging to life from the depths of the sea, charging against the massive breaking of the dam. Elsa gave her life, Anna gave me time to seal off her world, like hell am I going to let it fall, like fuck am I going to let it crumble. With a scream, I push my lifeblood into the current, a stream matching what pours from the dam step for step, force for force. My wave is a fist, piercing straight through the rush of the dam, demanding it not come closer, reminding it its place. For Anna, for Elsa, for me not wanting another home, another heart, another world destroyed. 

It’s so strong though and I’m falling so fast and, my vision bleeding, turning black and white, and then cold, sweet, shimmering blues. 

Blue. My first flash of a very mortal, very natural death and all I can see is Isa, no, Saix, standing above me, hurling my weapons bag into a portal.

_ this is for me _

‘Okay,’ I think. ‘You win, just love him enough for both of us. Keep Lea safe enough so that I don’t have to haunt your ass.’

And then I just--

I tumble, I crash down through the air, feeling the heaviness of my limbs and my eyes, like my body is finally floating home, into the deepest, gentlest of sleeps. 

My torso smashes into something that is equal parts soft and solid. The tidal wave? A snow bank? It achs,, but not the way something concrete would and I barely have interest in opening my eyes, but I do. 

There they are again, the soft, glistening blues, and a flash of silver blonde. I blink rapidly, desperate to keep my tired eyes open. I have to be dreaming, I have to be hallucinating. Maybe I’m just dead.

“You look tired.” Says a sweet, gently rasping voice. “Why don’t you rest and leave Arendelle to me.”

My eyes shoot open wide, my heart sputters in my chest.

“Elsa!” I cry out. Her gentle laugh echoes through the air. She waves her hands, from where she sits, from where I’ve fallen onto her horse made of water, and casts a great wall, high and spiked, made of glittering ice. With the pushback of my wave, and the rigidity of her ice, the kickback from the dam roars high, but is nothing more than seafoam at the top of her ice barrier, and washes straight back into the sea. 

“You’ve done so well, my friend. Thank you for what you’ve done for Anna, for what you’ve done for Arendelle.” She reaches back, touching the curve of my back as I choke on a pathetic, broken laugh.

“You’ve become clairvoyant in death. What are you, a ghost now?” I snort.

“The fifth spirit can’t die in Atohallan. But I did need Anna to set me free, something tells me you wouldn’t be charging to save Arendelle if you two weren’t working together.” She says.

“Fifth spirit...of course you are.” I shake my head. Why not, right? When my life is becoming the weird source of some prophecy, why not her’s, since there weren't enough parallels between the two of us. “Your sister’s inspiring as all hell. She gave her light to protect Arendelle and just enough time to seal it in the world’s heart before she broke open the dam. Still, I would've felt pretty awful letting your kingdom go under the sea.”

“You drained all of your energy for a place that isn’t even your home.” She shakes her head.

“I told you, I’m real sick of seeing people I care about suffer. That includes you and your sister. Besides, if you can reach into the pocket on my belt and grab a vial filled with something bright green, I should be okay. I’d do it myself, but I don’t know that I can move.” I confess, exhaling sharply as the horse starts to gallop, soft and gentle, like waves lapping at the shore.

“You are something else.” Elsa giggles, but sneaks into my pocket and finds me the Potion I need. In fact, she even uncorks it, and I do my best to twist so that she can place it between my lips. Just a sip does wonders, I finish off the whole vial and feel half way toward brand new. “Thank you, by the way. For Arendelle, for taking care of Anna. And for never holding me back.”

“I gave you time. It looks like that was all you needed. I guess a lot of people aren’t patient enough to deal with the rough patches of chasing your destiny.” I say, making a face. “Anyhow, your sister hardly needs taking care of, she's strong.”

“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Elsa beams, rounding a corner, toward a different shoreline. “You’ve done so much for us, for our family.”

“No, I played support.” I shake my head. “You’re all a bunch of decent people, the universe dealt you some nasty cards, I just evened the odds.”

“That you did.” She nods. “Well, I think a deal’s a deal, I owe you something in return.” She says, pulling on the horses reins. It skids to a stop and in the sea, she climbs off her horse, standing placidly on the water as though she weighs no more than air. But as I look to her feet, I see her standing on ice and I grin. Okay, me too. With the wave of my weary hand, I sigh out a soft Blizzard spell and struggle down off of the horse, legs chattering. I fall down onto one bended knee, laughing lazily. 

I cast a fifth tier spell. It might be a little out of my realm of abilities, but hot damn. Look out Donald, best mage in the realm is coming for ya, I wanna say. Haha, yeah right, like Donald’s gonna have a word to say to me when this is all over.

“How does this work, me granting you my light?” She asks.

“I do a little bit of extraction, store it away in my Keyblade and you go on with your life. Why don’t you ask that one behind ya?” I ask, nodding my head toward the woman standing on the shore. Elsa’s eyes fly wide, she whips around and from the edge of her face, I’m able to see a huge smile break out.

“Anna.” She breathes.

“Elsa! Is that you?” Anna screams. “Is that really you? And Rueki? Oh my.” She’s far enough away that she’s barely visible, but I do see her slap a hand to her heart and I warm from head to toe.

“We are in your debt for this, Rueki.” Elsa says, turning back to me. “My sister and I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.” She insists.

“Eh, hardly.” I wave a hand. “You’re the fifth spiritt, and she’s one heck of a princess. Besides, what are friends for?” I ask.

“Right, what are friends for.” She repeats, glowing from those beautiful, aqua eyes of hers. “So as our friend, we expect you to come back and visit.”

“Definitely, but my life’s kind of a mess for the time being, you’ll have to give me time to sort it out before I can come play.” I offer and she laughs.

“Time, of course. How about the resources as well?” She asks, spreading her arms, granting access to her heart, her beautiful, shining heart. I smile and call Backbiter to my hands. Her eyes flutter shut, serenity washes over her features and with that, I pull the light, tugging just so from her heart, which opens wide like a locket, longing only to share its secrets. It beams as it settles into my Keyblade, into four, circular slots at the base that I had registered existed, but didn’t realize could hold anything until now. When I’m here, staring at the brilliant glow, smiling hugely, realizing what I have at my disposal. And I want it, of course I want it. But I look at this light and see a third world I can seal off and I can’t help what it does to my heart. I am near halfway to my goal, Vanitas was half way to destroying the data hearts, a giddy realization tingles my limbs. Just a little more, I tell myself, just a few more princesses, just a few more leaps to make, just a few more lonely nights, and I can go home. I can twine my arms and smother myself in the heat of Lea’s embrace. My future, the future I want, the path that leads to the happy ending Lea and I have been dreaming of for years, is close enough to touch. The Master might be a dick for sending me to this world when Lea and Kairi are here, but he’s smart, and I have got to tip my hat for someone whose progress is this substantial.

“That really was painless.” Elsa admits. “Where will you go now?”

“I’ll have to check in with the boss, but I'll probably go to save another couple worlds. And then maybe home soon enough.” I reply, unable to fight the warmth as it spreads through my limbs. I’m almost there, I think, and I want to call Lea and Kairi and rejoice, even if they won’t celebrate the same way I will, even if they won’t glow from head to toe like I do. Elsa and Anna’s relationship has made me want nothing more then to sort out the kinks in my bond with Kairi, and as for Lea, well, even if he won’t come alive like I will, even if nothing has changed yet, even if he’s not going to be on my side, he’s been leaving me such sweet messages. Maybe I could call him, maybe I could just ask him what Elsa asked me, just for a little time, surely he must grant that to me. Maybe we’ll have an actual conversation, maybe there will be a way to sort this distance out, I feel completely stupid, being so optimistic, to the point I’m even falling into fatasies, imagining him and Kairi running up the length of the beach, stopping at the edge when their eyes spot me and--

Oh no. Oh fuck. This is not an imagination. They bound up right behind Anna. I’m not ready, I’m not ready, no matter what I thought a few seconds ago, that was a fantasy and I am not prepared to face them, not here, not now, not when I do need time and distance to just finish this.

“Oh shit. “ I breathe, but what I mean is oh fuck, oh goddamn. Oh no. 

Elsa’s head turns in the direction of my gaze and even in her peripheral vision, I see realization wash over.

We’re far enough away to be barely in their line of sight, but beside Anna, I make out another man approaching and maybe a horse? I’m not sure, because if I’m being honest, my eyes are straight up locked onto the two shocks of vibrant red hair.

His eyes have to be glowing, that’s the only way I can see the green of them from this far away.

“Omigod!” I hear Kairi scream. “Rueki!” 

“I uh...have to go.” I tell Elsa, and approximately now is when the fear sets in. I have to go, that is all good and dandy but uh-

Where the fuck do I go? And how do I get there? Panic is a noose that I can’t claw off of my neck no matter how desperately I tear at it. My hands are starting to go numb, my temples are pounding so hard I can barely hear Elsa speak over the roaring of my own blood flow.

“It looks like it’s alright. Maybe you can go home now.” She offers, gently, I’m sure she’s trying to soothe me, but the rapid shaking of my head, almost like a tick, is the most I can manage. Fuck, my face is hot but my hands are damn cold and I’m at least half way sure that if I can rub away at my stupid pulsepoints just enough, I can stop my stupid heart from wrecking my stupid thoughts. “Rueki, stop, you’re bleeding.” She takes my hand from where I’m clawing at my neck. I pinch my eyes shut and shake my head harder, hand trembling in hers.

“Uh, no, no, not me. I don’t get to go home yet, this can be your happy ending, but I’ve still got a lot further to go.” I tell her. 

“Well, Arendelle won’t forget what you’ve done. And neither will I, if you ever need a sanctuary, you’ll be greeted with open arms.” She assures me as I slowly, reluctantly reopen my eyes.

“That’s great and cool and…” Omigod, I can’t do this. No matter how I try to tear my gaze away, I can’t take my eyes off of him. Lea. At the edge of the beach, close enough to touch and miles away. My feet move of their own accord, a step toward him and then another and then another. I can see the way he’s got his eyes narrowed like he thinks he’s hallucinating, like this can’t actually be me. There’s that way his mouth, soft like heaven, hangs slightly open in contemplation. Suddenly that beautiful mouth closes and his eyes go wide. He touches his heart and I feel it. Or at least I feel the ache of it, deep into my bones, like an illness, devouring us both. He’s so close, all I need to do is take a few further steps, and a few further and a few further until my willpower crumbles and I’ve sufficiently given up on everything I’ve ever believed in. 

I want this so bad it hurts, that it’s weakening my knees and feels like a sledgehammer to my chest, I want to break out into a sprint and close the distance between the two of us. If the Master could promise me any sweet prize, the way he has the others, it would be this, here and now, but instead of him being landlocked and me only trusting myself safely in the sea, I would be flinging myself at Lea, devouring his lips and skin until the glutton and lover within me are equal parts satiated, I want to come home so bad, it burns. And then it physically does, fire licks the edges of my skin, my eyes flick down and I curse, smacking the edges of my shirt against my torso, trying to snuff out the flames, and I do, but not until the sleeves are scorched to my elbows. 

“Fire.” I hear Lea murmur, my heart sputters. Are lightning spells coming easier to him? Is he sparking as he reaches out toward Skuld? Is he reaching to her, because my phone is still lighting up with messages from him every day and there is pain in the sound of his voice. Was my insecurity rooted only in my head? “Rueki?” He calls out to me, effectively shattering me. 

“Go get her!” Kairi begs. “Rueki, come home, what the hell are you doing?” She throws her hands up. I shake my head and take a step back and another and another until Elsa is closer to the land than I am.

“Go to your sister, enjoy your kingdom.” I urge her.

“I wish you safety, Rueki. You didn’t hold me back from my destiny, I won’t hold you back from yours but remember there are those of us who want to see you make it to the end.” Elsa reminds me. 

“I know, I know, but I--” I’m watching Lea and Kairi shout at each other and their voices are so much softer now, but I’m not safe, not by a long shot. Still, I’m mesmerized, even as I watch Lea take a step forward, out toward the water. What the fuck is he trying to do, swim out here? 

But he doesn’t swim. He doesn’t get wet. He takes a massive step right out onto the water, a solid disc of ice solidifying just beneath his feet. Exactly like the one I’m standing on. 

“What the fuck?” I hear him gasp and yeah, that about sums it up.

“Shit.” I whisper. He looks down at the disc, up toward me, down to the disc and the back up at me. My heart stops. What the fuck is up with my magic?

Experimentally, Lea takes a step forward, and another step forward and another. Goddammit.

“Rueki!” He calls my name again, and I feel like I’m being yanked forward. But I look at the strings that tie me to anyone, him or Xigbar or Sora, Roxas, Xion and Ven, and I cut them. I cut them all. No, this isn’t right, I can’t do this now, not when I’m still shaking, barely holding onto who I am outside of him. I take a step back and he counters with another forward. For every step I take back, he takes a huge one forward until my heart and my lungs are screaming and my brain just flat out begs ‘run’!

I whip around, cursing loudly as I break out into a sprint, dashing out across the sea, hair blown back, eyes burning, face stinging. I can’t breathe or think, but every step is punctuated by the pathetic hammer of my pulse, urging me on, to get the hell away from him at the speed of light. I’m faster than he is, this is my magic, I’m more comfortable with it than he’ll be, there’s no way he’ll catch up to me. But slowly, he is, fuck his long legs.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, this would be so much easier if I could just light travel, I--

‘Okay, Xigbar, come on, don’t fuck me over’. I plead, internally. There’s no instanteous answer and with my mind on overdrive, I start flailing my stupid arms, thinking of light, of any kind, of pastel colors or street lamps or the world’s heart or my glowing Keyblade, literally fucking anything, but my damn hands won’t work and Lea is gaining on me. I struggle for breath, but my chest is so tight, no matter how much I breathe, it’s not enough, white dots start to prick at my vision.

‘Xigbar, Luxu, please!’ I whine. ‘If you don’t save me, I’m going home with Lea!’ I threaten, but nothing happens, no portal made of light, not even the snarky bastard showing up to have some dick measuring contest with my husband, I’m alone and I’m starting to hyperventilate and fuck, Lea’s going to catch me and I--

I could just let him.

‘Fuck, anyone, open a damn portal or I’m going--’

Bright, white light appears beneath me, my heart clenches as I fall straight through. The last sight I catch a glimpse of in Arendelle is Lea cursing my name as the disc disappears beneath his feet and he falls into the water. 

My body throbs as I smash into short, black carpeting, eyes blown out as the wind is sufficiently knocked out of me. I clap a hand to my heart, face flushed half from the fall, half from the fact that I’m still reeling from the universe low key attempting to take a shit on me. 

“A little late to the rescue there, dickhead.” I say, laughing at the ceiling, which I half expect Xigbar to be on if we’re in his room. I turn my head, searching the area from him, but when I meet golden eyes, they’re plural and not singular. 

Remember when I thought the universe was low key taking a shit on me? Remember how quickly it escalated?

“Could you scream any louder, witch? Or were you trying to give me a migraine?” Sure enough, Vanitas is sitting at the foot of his bed, not far from where I lay, elbows on his knees, head between his hands like if he squeezes it enough, some of the pressure will dissipate. His eyes are slits of molten gold as he regards me and I groan, wondering how hard it would be to fade into the carpet.

“I’m sorry, I promise I wasn’t trying to get a hold of you.” But of course I did, Xigbar’s gonna hear about this, because fuck him for dropping me off with no intention of picking me up. Of course I rewoke my damn empathy link after working my ass off to silence it. I wonder how loud Roxas heard me freaking out, I wonder what Xion will say to Lea and Kairi when they return home, how Sora will stomach me crying out frantically for Xigbar or the way Ven might feel betrayed, knowing I have made a home in his, on the opposite side. Fuck me. And there I was, thinking I actually had a handle on my fucking heart.

“Oh, everyone in the damn realm could hear that. Xigbar, save me.” He mocks, fixing his lips into a pout. 

“I definitely didn’t ask anyone to save me.” I groan. “And I don’t really have the fucking energy to argue with you, man. Thanks for hooking me up, but I’m calling us square.”

“Are your precious feelings still hurt cuz I didn’t want your little concoction?” He taunts.

“No, but that did help me sufficiently decide that I don’t want to be your friend, thanks.” With a massive breath, my shaking arms propel me upward, only so that I can get met with a foot to the ribs and fall flat on my back. “You’re a little prick.” I accuse the boy, hovering above me, standing now, and pressing his damn foot with enough force to bruise. “You get one chance kid, one chance to move that thing or I’m zapping you.” I warn him. He snorts and I sigh. “Fine.” So I do exactly that, I wrap my arm around his ankle and spark, not stopping until he’s flat on his ass, legs thrashing beside my head. “Good talk.” I pat his legs and push myself back up, looking around the room.

It’s decorated the way I’d expect of Vanitas, dark and moody, with very little in the realm of personal taste. This kid takes himself so fucking seriously, it would be funny if he wasn’t such a little grump.

“That’s all you’ve got?” He sneers, as he finally stops spasming and sits up, assessing me with a glare. 

“I told you, I don’t have the energy to fight you.” I repeat. “I’ve already got to shout at Xigbar for fucking me over, and in case my heart skimped on any details, I ran into Lea nd Kairi, so no, not in a great mood, if you want someone to kick you in the dick, come back another day, m’kay?”

“You’re fucking pathetic, gonna go cry over some man who doesn’t even want you anymore.” He rolls his eyes. My teeth drag across my lips. I can’t out snark someone who feeds only off of my defensiveness.

Fine.

“Yeah, probably, or at least I’m gonna feel sad about it, this fucking hurts me man. More than you ever can.” I sigh.

“Is that why you let me beat the fuck out of you the other day?” He asks. “I don’t have high expectations for you or anything, but I know you wouldn’t have let me break your nose like that if you were actually fighting back.” He says, waving a hand up at me. I laugh, a soft, humorless little noise.

“Maybe, in a twisted way. I think when I lost Kairi I didn’t...I think I turned off a lot of feelings, I don’t know that anything healed, I just know I didn’t feel a whole lot until I felt like I was losing Lea. I think I’m just so sick of burying myself in someone else or feeling nothing. You’re a little douche, but there was something about all of that, that cut the cord and reminded me that I was alive again.” I confess, unsurprised when my vulnerability leaves him flushing, folding in even tighter on himself as if to hide his body from me.

“Great story, you stupid bitch. You don’t even know the difference between pleasure and pain.” He snarls, eyes darting pointedly away from me. I huff.

“Right, cuz you’re a cut above me, I reiterate, good talk.” And with that, I put as much distance between the two of us as possible, as quickly as I can.

But not so I can chase down Xigbar. No, I have far more important things playing out in my mind, situations that are probably impossible, conversations that absolutely cannot go well, but things I know I need to say. If not for me, then for Elsa, for Anna, for her.

I’m flat on my back, in my bed, phone pressed to my ear when her voice cuts through.

“I’m going to kick your ass the next time I see you.” Kairi tells me. My heart throbs.

“Is anyone else around?” I ask.

“Of course not, I’m not stupid.” She huffs. “Unlike you.”

“You get two free shots, kiddo, use them wisely.” I tell her.

“You know, I can’t believe you. Sora said he heard you calling out for Xigbar? You’ve full blown joined their side just because you and Lea were having a fight, you have issues!” She insists, voice cracking on the end. “I can’t believe you… I can’t fucking…” She’s sniffling now and something feels like it is crunching down on my heart. “I can’t believe you left, you belong here, Rueki.”

“I don’t.” I disagree. “I’m not coming home and I’m not going to apologize for switching sides, and you’re just going to have to let that go, even though we both know you don’t want to.”

“Then what the hell did you call for?” She snaps, forcing anger that we both know she wants to feel but can’t. 

“I called because I owe you an apology. Your death fucked me up, like bad.” I confess. I hear her breathing still and feel my limbs grow cold.

“I’m sorry, I can’t change that.” She tells me. “I wish I could, Rueki, you know I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“And I’m not here because I’m trying to hurt you, Kai. I love you, and I know I didn’t act like that, I haven’t since you came back and that was flat out shitty of me, I didn’t realize how hard I was pushing everything and everyone away until recently.” I admit.

“Omigod, literally even Del could have told you that!” She huffs.

“Are you making jokes about how dumb he is?” I laugh, despite how heavy my heart feels, how heavy I’m sure we both feel. 

“Well duh! You’re my best friend…” She trails off.

“I should have treated you like that but Kai, damn I wish you could know how I felt.” I shake my head.

“No one ever does, Rueki, you never tell anyone anything.” She protests.

“I told Lea everything.” I counter.

“And he has legit spent the past week as a nervous wreck, us leaving for Arendelle yesterday was the only time he hasn’t been borderline catatonic.” She informs me, solidifying the ice forming around my insides. 

“And I ruined it.” I whisper.

“No, I mean, maybe a little when Roxas came flying down the stairs accusing him of pissing you off cuz you were calling out to Xigbar, but I know you didn’t mean to and he knows too but…” She trails off. “I just don’t understand, Rueki.”

“I can’t live like this anymore, I’m not asking anyone to understand, I wish you’d all trust me or at the very least, wouldn’t stop me. I’ve never been more sure of myself, of what I’m supposed to be doing, in my entire life.” I promise her.

“How can you possibly feel that way?” She asks.

There’s silence, a static in our breaths as they become the only sound passing between the two of us. 

“Skuld’s narrative about the past isn’t the only one that exists. I’ve heard from two separate sources, just how bright the worlds used to shine. Think about when it was just you and Sora and Riku, playing on the islands, imagine that’s what life is like again, no impending threat, no watching Xemnas try to get Sora, no getting left alone to rot on an island because your friends aren’t off risking their lives anymore. Don’t tell me you don’t want that, the simplicity? Don’t you want more nights like the one we shared on the island, watching movies and making shitty food cuz neither of us can cook for a damn?” I ask, voice rising into something higher with every single word

“Of course I want that, but that’s not all that life is, Rueki.” I can hear the sound of her hair brushing the phone as she shakes her head.

“No, it can be you having a bad day at school or me complaining about work or having a fight with Lea or us arguing because you and Sora still haven’t made a move on each other or something like that! That’s what normal looks like!” I insist.

“Our lives aren’t normal, Rueki.” She says, frustration straining her voice.

“But they should be!” I snap.

“You’re trying so hard to bring the light back into your world, but you’re forgetting darkness is supposed to exist.” She pleads. 

“Since when, since Master Yen Sid said so? Cuz fuck him, he was the one who told us we had to defend the light at all costs, and we did!” 

“So the realm could be balanced, please, Rueki, I know your heart hurts, but how can you not see, just from knowing me, just from being my friend, what too much light does? It’s sterile, nothing feels right or real and--”

“I found a way to feel that without light, no thanks to you.” I snarl.

There’s that static, deep silence again.

“I don’t like how you’re sounding.” She whispers. 

“Fine.” I just say and hang up the phone, hands shaking, heart aching sore and deep like it's slowly rotting from within. I take a massive breath that flares my nostrils, rise out of bed and put my fist straight through the mirror on my dresser.

My knuckles are sore, bleeding, and I’m staring at myself, crooked nose, mangled scar, missing hair, in the jagged wreckage of the mirror. 

I hate the way I look, shoulders heaving, face flushed with the clear aftermath of adrenaline. I hate how the broken glass at my feet, in chunks and shards isn’t enough. I want to rip the drawers apart with my bare hands, I want to cut the comforter into pieces. I wanna bust out the damn windows and beg the world to pour down onto me. 

Why did I think I would suddenly be able to talk to her or anyone? Why did I think anything would be different, why would I try to close distance that I cannot be solely responsible for. I’m not, I know I’m not! This can be my fault, but is all of it? I don’t feel stupid or wrong, I feel revolutionary and free, I feel steps closer to everything I’ve ever wanted. Is this naivety? And if it’s not, why do I feel so fucking stupid trying to explain to anyone I cared about, how I feel?

It was a fucking mistake, I decide, and clearly just me trying to ease my own conscience, calling her like I did. Why did I think for a second, things could be like before and she’d listen to me and just maybe sulk for a few days before curling her warmth right around me again?

I miss her twice as bad as before.

“Xigbar…” I mutter softly from where I stand, and this time the bastard answers, easy and free. I look to him with half as much hatred in my eyes as I’d like, gripping the edge of the dresser with taut shoulders and two white knuckled hands.

“Whoa...kiddo…” He begins, from where he teleported in, sitting at the edge of my bed. “Bad day, I take it.”

“I sealed Arendelle, I have additional light waiting from the second Princess of Heart.” I grumble, defensively, watching, in the jagged remnants of the mirror, as he puts his hands up in defense. “And you didn’t come when I called.” 

“Hey, don’t go shooting at me, I didn’t hear you call, remember I don’t control that, you do.” He says. My teeth chomp together so hard in my mouth I can hear them clicking through my skull. “What’s your deal?”

“Lea and Kairi were there.” I murmur, looking down at the dresser and then back up at our crooked reflections. “Did the Master tell you that?” 

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” He asks. I snort.

“No, I fucking broke my mirror cuz I had a real fun day, not cuz I had to get Vanitas to bring me home, because Lea chased me out into the damn sea. I’m in a piss ass mood cuz I had an awesome day, not because I just got off the phone, screaming at someone who I used to think was my fucking friend!” I slam a fist down onto the dresser, down onto a stray shard. It stings so bad, I see spots, but the sound of quiet footsteps across my carpet helps me back, easing me into a reality that I can suffer through. It’s a damn cut, nothing out of the ordinary. It’s not so bad, but doesn’t light me up half the way Vanitas did. I don’t want this death by a thousand cuts, I think. No, next time I break something, it had best break me back.

A hand settles onto my shoulder and with a bloody palm, I reach out and grab his gloved hand on my body, squeezing it impossibly tight.

“Why do I feel like such a fucking idiot every time I’m vulnerable with anyone?” I ask. In the mirror, I watch as he snakes an arm around my middle and pulls me in a little tighter from behind. It’s pleasant, that little bit of pressure, his little bit of warmth, the way I’m certain he won’t let me go until I demand he does, and maybe not even then. 

“For whatever it’s worth, you’re not an idiot, kid. I’ve been around enough people, through enough lifetimes, to know that you’re being damn brave, chasing after your dreams when no one else will follow you.” My hand slowly falls away from his, but he takes this chance to spin me around and press my face into his chest. 

“You’re just saying shit to get into my pants.” I counter, shaking my head.

“Most of the time.” He agrees, patting my hair, drawing a whimper straight from my throat. 

“Can’t you just give me light?” I whine, needing it terribly, wanting to feel high and easy and breathless like only he’s made me. 

“Can’t you just take a damn compliment and let me actually try to be here for you?” He sighs.

“No.” I answer, instantly. “I mean, I’m really not good at that.”

“Well, me either.” He admits, the hand that isn’t in my hair trailing up and down my back. I realize that of course he isn’t, what romantic interaction could this man have possibly had, lacking what he does, and spending lifetimes waiting for someone who was supposed to be his promised perfection? “So don’t make me guess what I’m supposed to say, cuz it’s not gonna be the right thing.” He tells me and I laugh, choking a little. 

“You’re an idiot.” I tell him.

“Right, I’ve had lifetimes more to learn than you, I’m the idiot.” He counters, and I laugh again focusing on the strain in my cheeks as a smile twists up and the shaking in my shoulders from something other than tears.

“I can’t control the fact that you’ve had all this time go get smart and you’ve spent it just making yourself extra dumb.” I shrug against him and he holds me tighter.

“That wasn’t even clever, you should be embarrassed with yourself.” He snorts.

“I am, like perpetually.” I admit. And he doesn’t know how to respond to that and I don’t necessarily know that I want him to, in fact, I think I rather like him like this. Spellbound by the way I’m so unguarded. “Can we figure out how to light travel tonight?”

“Oh, you’re actually opting to spend time with me?” He chuckles.

“Yikes, you might have ruined it.” I make a face. He snorts, pulling away from me to look down at my torn up hands. A gloved thumb brushes the scar that swipes across my face, and he smiles, this sad, ironic little smile. “Well little Rueki, we match.” 

We do. I make a face.

“I probably have you beat.” I remind him, but he barks out this big, obnoxious laugh that has me flinching back, even though his grip on me tightens.

“You wanna strip down and we can compare?” He offers. I roll my eyes.

“We’re gonna light travel, you’re gonna show me how pretty this world is. Or I’m just gonna go bury my head in the dirt.” I threaten.

“There is something wrong with you.” He tells me, gently leading me through the broken glass.

“Well, you’re the one with a crush on me, what does that say about you?”


	33. Chapter 33

XXXII.

But I don’t somehow get magically good at light traveling overnight. I still can’t summon a portal, I still feel guilty about every word I utter to Xigbar and every glance he steals at me like everything in the realm is still my fault.

I spend far too long that night, staring over the slew of messages I have received from Lea in the last few days, namely the three would be letters he’s sent that I’ve hardly paid attention to, in a sad attempt to stave off some of my admitted masochism. 

‘I’m sorry that you’re still mad at me. I’ve obviously really hurt you if you’ve been gone for more than a day, and that makes me feel like such shit. I love you so much, and I think a lot of what we do is try to pull each other so close, that we can’t even hear the other shouting that they need more. I don’t know that I’ve been a very good listener lately, what I do know is that I have been very scared about you lately. Scared that you’re going to break again, the way you did last year. I’m still scared that Xigbar is going to do something to you to make you fall apart, just so he can feel good about cleaning up the pieces. And that makes me feel even more like garbage, because this time I’m scared it’s gonna be because of me, and what things have become, that break your heart. I don’t think you’re fragile, not by a long shot, but I think I’ve been treating you like you are, when you’re one of the strongest people I know. Of course you broke down when your best friend died, of course you were fucked up when time and time again you had to shoulder the weight of killing people in a war you never asked to be a part of. I’m not trying to justify anything I did Rueks, I just want you to know why I wanted to tuck you as far away from this as possible, so bad. You’re the whole fucking world, baby. You’re everything and then some, that's the stars and the moon and you. And while I was trying to stop you from falling apart like you did when Kairi died, I missed that you were falling apart in new and different ways. That was fucking shit of me. I want you to come home, I want to make it up to you. I know you..idk, kind of put an end to things, but this isn’t over for me, and it’s not gonna be. Come home, sweetheart. I need you.’

‘So it’s pretty clear that you’re not gonna respond, what with me pouring my heart out and everything. I know you like putting walls up around yourself any chance you get, but I don’t think you have memorized the fact that I’m damn good at tearing them down. I know you, I know that this prophecy is a lot and the expectations of it and the secrets you kept, to try to avoid it were controlling you more than you wanted them to. I’m so sorry you felt like you were alone in facing them, because there was never a second that you were. I spent my energy on trying to make Isa and Skuld feel at home, when it should have been spent on reminding you that this was your home, if I could go back, I would and you know I’m not the type to just spit out regrets. You were jealous when you left, you were hurt, that much was clear, but there’s not a damn person in the realm that has anything on you, beautiful. There’s no one I’ve ever missed like this. I love you, can you please just get your ass home and let me make this up to you?’

‘Kairi’s dragging me off on a mission today. My phone will be on the entire time, though you probably won’t call back, I just wanted you to know. The house feels empty without you, quiet, eerie, like Oblivion was when we went back there to search for secrets about Xemnas’ plan. Roxas has been pissy as hell, he’s pretty pointedly not talking to me, even when Xion tries to convince him otherwise. Kairi keeps insisting you’re in Daybreak Town, which is pretty obvious, but she’s also convinced she can use her light to open up the world and drag you home by your hair, so there’s that. Ven and Aqua are at wits end with each other, I feel bad for Terra, trying to play mediator. Ven’s pretty set on going after you, Aqua doesn’t know that you’re safe to be around. Sora thinks if we all keep butting in, we can intercede, Riku’s scared we can’t, because he doesn’t think he could have been reached the second darkness touched him and hopes you can ride this out. Amaya’s pretty much shut everyone but Del and Aqua out. They spend a lot of time with Lucidia lately. You’d never believe this, but Isa’ pretty defensive of you lately. I mean, you know, in the way Isa would be. In the way that if someone has something shitty to say about you, he makes sure they shut their mouths quickly. This whole world misses you, babe. So even if you’re pissed at me, could you just come back for one of them? Come on, please.’ 

There’s not a single word that doesn’t break my heart or have my hands shaking or have me struggling for breath. I spend the evening with what seems, a cinderblock on my chest, a burning in my veins, urging me to move when neither my heart nor my head are capable of doing that. I need a distraction or I'm going to tear myself apart, I need Xigbar to be so much himself I forget who I am, I need Vanitas to bash my face in, I need Elrena to scream at me or Ludor to entertain me. I need something that doesn’t feel half this close to home.

I need something that isn’t a screeching reminder that my bed is quite cold and empty. Funny, this room is supposed to house everything I could ever want or need, but it’s plainly missing him. 

Lea. My Lea. How close we were only yesterday, him sprinting to close the distance and me leaping away as fast as I could. But that’s not right. I reached out to him first, propelled by my own instincts, I took the first steps. Seeing him, unmoving, gaping at me, coupled with my own insecurities drove me back, drove me here. 

Nothing’s changed, I remind myself. He knows he hurt me, he knows that I was crushed under the weight of him wanting to shelter me. But no one in my house is going to suddenly let me pursue the light and see me as anything more than a moth, stupid and only drawn to the brightness of the flame. I’m more, I remind myself, more than instinct. Xigbar thinks I’m brave, I don’t know that I trust his words to be genuine, but they sounded nice, they made me feel something other than broken and yet--

Yet, I cannot shake the way my arms feel empty and my heart feels hollow. How can something so right leave me so drained, how can chasing my destiny lead me leaps and bounds away from the person I love? Is any of this right and will I stop questioning myself, my choices, ever? Have I been conditioned to be so insecure? I don’t think I always was, in fact, I think that once upon a time, I was borderline self righteous. 

No, I know I’m right. I know that being alive shouldn’t always feel like being trampled, reaching an arm up, screaming and waiting for someone to pull me from the landslide of my own circumstances. I do know that this is what I’m supposed to be doing, I know that no one has swindled me into believing that my path makes sense, because it does. Still, I think a lot of my fears could be washed away if Lea and I were laying chest to chest, talking this all over. He’d know what to say, he’d brush my hair out of my face and remind me, convincingly, that I’m the only one with the power to shake my world, that my life is mine, I belong to no one, and he’s just happy that we’re choosing each other.

Everything felt so much simpler when it felt like a choice to help the boy with the broken Gummi Ship, instead of carrying this kind of weight. Either I succeed or I lose the chance to ever find back the life I’ve earned. Either I stay true and keep my distance from someone I want to be with, or I resign myself to an eternity of being judged by Skuld, of Aqua being concerned about my darkness, of fucking going off on Kairi, who didn’t deserve a damn word I shouted at her yesterday. I have to make this work, I can’t go back without wanting to die, I can’t go forward without feeling like I’m using Xigbar as a crutch, I don’t know where to turn, where to move, what to do. How can something I want so bad feel so much like a trap?

I doze off, I must, but it’s in fits and starts, seeing a meadow of flowers and a white coat and hearing a girl’s voice, young and sweet, like the chiming of a bell. 

‘A lot has changed over time, but there’s always been one constant in my life. You.’

I wake up, brushing tears aside, with the heels of my hand. Shifting slightly, I turn to look out the window and groan. Not even daybreak yet, fuck me. 

My phone buzzes beside me, and pathetically, I reach for it, as though it will contain some sort of sign that will promptly ease my woes. 

Hardly.

Kairi: I don’t think our talk went very good, but if you’re mad at me, I do want a chance to talk about that. It sounds like you’re upset I didn’t give you my light, since though we talked about it before the last war. I’m really sorry I made you feel like you weren’t deserving or that I was keeping something from you. I feel like you’ve been keeping a lot of this hurt from me, I don’t like that, and I want to talk about that too. I do have a reason for not extending the offer to you now and it has everything to do with that wild prophecy that you’re a part of. I hope you understand, I hope you get it, the expectations, the pull, the wondering why anyone is interested in you, and the hatred for how obsessed they are with something you're not convinced you have. It’s not half as fun as it sounds, and I didn’t think you deserved any more weight on your shoulders. Call me back when you can, let’s talk. I love you, Rueki.

Once more, she’s far too good for me, and I laugh, a soft, hollow, pathetic sound that I hate, as it swells across the room . 

It doesn’t matter that she’s up, I have no business calling her at this hour, and even if it did, I know how it would go. Last time, I had a damn plan about what I would say and how healing it would feel for both of us, and it still ended with me shrieking at someone who offered me kindness--funny when I submit to damn near everyone who meets me with violence. 

Who the fuck knows if I’m even going to call her back. Who the fuck knows if I even should, but right now, I can’t face the sound of even her voice. Not when the broken glass in my room has been magically cleaned up, but the mirror itself is still destroyed beyond repair. 

So, instead, I scroll to the next message, the one Lea must have sent while I slept.

Lea: I’m just gonna be fucking candid with you, Rueks, I don’t sleep for shit without you, I don’t feel good about taking this path without you, but knowing you cried to Xigbar for help? It makes it a little easier to get up and oppose you. You’ve gotta at least know you’re doing something fucked up with people like him and Vanitas are making up your team. I don’t know what you’re telling yourself, but I think whatever it is, we should talk about it, because the woman I met, the woman I married, wouldn’t stomach turning into a villain for an easy way out. I love you, watching you run away from me, finding out you ran toward him? That was fucking hell, and I’m not gonna keep sucking your ass when the two of you are probably laughing over every word I send you. Maybe you could have the damn courtesy to respond to my messages and at least let me know if you just got your ass the hell away from me so that you could move on with someone else. I don’t know what to fucking do, Rueki. Tell me what you want, because I have no fucking clue how this can not be breaking your heart half as much as it is mine, unless youve somehow forgotten how hard we loved each other.

“Fuck.” I curse aloud, slamming my phone down on my nightstand, facedown. “I’m not gonna cry.” I say out loud, so that I can keep my voice level and convince myself that I’m staying calm. I don’t feel calm, I don’t feel level, I can feel my heart throbbing in my chest, begging me to type out a response, something, anything. 

How the fuck could he possibly think he’s being mocked, in what world could he ever think that I’m curled into someone else, taunting his devotion to me? He knows me, I know him, there’s no shortage of familiarity, so when did I become a stranger? When was he able to convince himself that I could think and feel so little for him when he is absolutely everything to me? Probably around the same time that I convinced myself that he wanted to walk away from me, because some girl from his past, that he never expressed romantic interest in, showed up. Maybe if I hadn’t been a shameless fucking flirt and he hadn’t chosen Isa over me on more than one occasion, I wouldn’t be wanting to snatch the damn phone off the dresser, call him up and scream areminder that the choices I’m making are for him. 

Every last thing is for him. But that was the point of giving him my rings back, wasn’t it? He’s allowed to be as mad at me as he wants, he’s allowed to blame me as much as he wants, he’s allowed to have his full spectrum of feelings, I would never want to take that from him. I guess I just didn’t allow myself to fathom the notion that he might want to express any of those feelings to me before I was properly ready.

A knock sounds off on my door, and that’s the biggest distinction, I have found, between the Master greeting me with a chess match and Xigbar strutting into my room like it’s as much his as it is mine. 

“Go away, I’m naked.” I mutter, irritably. The Master snorts.

“No, you’re sulking over someone who doesn’t matter in the grand scheme.” He chuckles, shutting the door behind him as he enters. 

“Right, no, the other half of my soul, let’s not even acknowledge that he might be important to me, even if, in some hypothetical world I serve your perfect purpose, remove the darkness from the world and run away with Xigbar. It’s not like someone with that kind of attachment to my very being will ever cross my mind again after that, thank you so much for the perspective.” I roll my eyes, but push myself to a seated position, just as the Master sets up the chess board across from me. 

“Well, you didn’t go running back to him yesterday, did you?” He asks, cocking his hooded head to the side.

“You’re a sick fucking bastard, doing that to me.” I hiss. “And even if you’re like all the other Foretellers, and not so secretly hate me, why would you not even give Xigbar the heads up?” 

“Because I knew what you’d do, I saw how you’d react. I knew that this wasn’t something you’d never recover from and that hey, you might find comfort in a person who your heart is actually attached to. Don’t brush off my foresight, sugar.” He says. “Besides, I do like you. So does Luxu. Ava too. So wipe that pout off your face.”

Fuck him. And I’m going to utterly disregard the part where he forgot that I’ve not met Ava. It’s cool that she won’t treat me half as bad as her would be siblings when I meet her, but I’m not done being upset at the Master. Xigbar, I will cast aside my grievances for, just because I like my life more with him in it. The Master hardly gets the same pass.

“Well, you also haven’t explained to me, the extent of your foresight. Also, go fuck yourself, no permanent damage. I know you know how much like shit I basically always feel, does that not count for anything?” I snap.

He’s quiet for a moment as he finished setting up the board, this time with me getting the white pieces. I guess this must be what he constitutes as an apology.

“Would it mean anything if I told you that before you were even born, I’ve seen you come out of this? You end up happy, it’s hard earned, but you don’t hurt anymore, you don’t cry over what becomes of your life, you smile and you embrace peace, and you do so well with the world being in its proper state. You flourish above and beyond any of the other Union Leaders. Not that they’re not happy, of course I wouldn’t let any of you lead lives that you hated after everything you do, but you are in a state of bliss. You’re borderline manic, sugar. Things only have to burn for a little. It gets easier. And you’re happy trusting your heart.” But I hear him mention my heart, and all I hear is that the only way I get to be happy is if I give up on Lea, and I know myself better than that. He could call me up right now and tell me that it’s done, and I would cling to the shreds of what we had, by the skin of my teeth. “Oh, and your damn soul too, not that that was my plan, but sure, you don’t have to burn that bridge, all I’m saying is your world is a lot happier if you stop gravitating toward something that costs you everything to make it happen and learn that love can look like you being free and at ease. Not everything needs to take alchemic amounts of energy. I’m quite aware of what love is, it shouldn’t be like that.”

Again, fuck him.

“Can you just make your move?” I huff, after quickly making mine. 

“You know, sugar, it’s okay to want things in life to come easy.” He says. When my expression doesn’t budge, he does make his move and I make another, eyes narrowed. I’ve played him a few times now, and while I don’t expect any miracles, I do notice how utterly unassuming he’ll play until suddenly he’s got me cornered. It’s nothing like the hyper aggressive way Larxene played, he’s not so distracted by his own strategy that he can be turned around like Marluxia. Actually, the person who plays closest to him has got to be Namine, strangely enough. “I do. I want everything to come easy. That was easily worth an eye.” He says. My eyebrows raise.

“Excuse me?” I choke.

“You didn’t think the eye in that old Keyblade was a prop, did you?” He chuckles as my face contorts into something uneasy. 

“Do you know you kind of have psychopathic tendencies?” I ask. He snorts. 

“Do you want to be the pot or the kettle? That’s what people ask, right?” But I’m damn sure he’s only asking this question so that he can hear the sound of me telling him that he’s correct.

“So you cut out your eye and being that you’re not just a normal person, you what? See into the future with that?” I ask.

“Bingo.” He says, making a move.

“That’s fucked up.” I say.

“Effective, though.” He insists, and I’m sure it is. It's not that I don't get the appeal.

“What about all of those times that you’re not around? What about human error? If someone changes their mind part way into doing something, how can you be so sure about the events you’ve seen?” I ask, moving a piece on my side.

“Are you insinuating you believe in multiple realities?” He chuckles.

“Fat fucking chance.” I say, flatly. “I’m saying that method doesn’t seem to account for the coincidences that are bound to happen.”

“Well, for that, there are other methods. I do try not to indulge in that end of things if I can help it, the risks rarely reap benefits.” He tells me, taking my queen. Already. Fuck.

“And to clarify?” I huff.

“Your friend Sora isn’t the only one ever who has explored multiple timelines in one body, I’m well aware of the influence I can have, the actions I can take to ensure certain events happen.” He explains. 

“Like the Keyblade War.” I predict.

“Among other things.” He agrees. “But, well, there’s clearly a cost. Your friend only dove into those sleeping timelines a handful of times and he lost his life, rewriting the realm. I have a lot more in me before I start to fade, but even I do too. There’s nothing in the realm immune to the hands of time, that’s why I have the Keyblade, as a failsafe, a way I could ensure I saw more than I normally would. And there’s my Foretellers. I know Luxu explained plenty about the circumstances of his birth, to you.” 

“Sure, that you created him and the others out of the same thing you were made of.” I nod.

“Primarily. But they were unstable, not able to hold corporeal form until I put a bit of my own essence into them. They are all a part of me, as long as one of us exists, we all do.” He tells me and I shake my head, fighting off a stupid, tiny smirk. For someone so obsessed with his own self importance, he is damn good at ensuring his immortality, I’ll give him that.

“Well, aren’t you really just the mother of all sins?” I tease and he laughs a little bit too.

“Right you are. And that’s another way I can see things. My heart is within the hearts of others, my energy is theirs. If any of us had a soul, theirs would merely be parts of mine. So, if any of them happen to see anything that triggers a particular reaction within their heart... “ He begins and I roll my eyes, making another move.

“If it triggers a reaction in their heart, you get to watch it all play out. So that’s how you can give me so much insight into my future compared to the others. Since there’s a bit of Xigbar in my heart.” And it also explains why I saw his eye, specifically, in my Station of Awakening. He’s been there resting the whole time, he needed me to awaken him because there’s a piece of him in me. Just like Sora was able to stir Kairi when her heart rested in his, just like he woke Ventus, just like he set Roxas free. Before I knew what I was doing, I was waking him with a power that comes with a high cost, and it’s enticing to me, immediately. I contemplate how this Power of Waking could this play out, were I to abuse it, could I grant myself the kindness of confirmation that my ending will play out exactly as I want it to? Is that even within my realm of ability? 

“Check.” He says and I curse, snapping out of my own head. I quickly move a piece in front of my king and he nods, making another move. My king is safe for the time being, but suddenly, I’m a lot more focused on the board and the exact placement of his pieces. “Not bad, by the way. But that shows you that you’re not gonna win this match then, right?” He teases. My hand tightens around a pawn that I’m about to move. Fuck him.

“So, I obviously have an extra light sitting in my Keyblade.” I remind him, quickly turning the subject matter around. 

“That you do.” He nods, I make my move. “And you’re gonna take it right back to your home world” He says. My face goes stark pale and I stop moving, heart pounding in my chest, desperate to break out.

“I’m not going back to Twilight Town!” I swear and he reaches out, gently patting my hand. I don’t know what it is, but something about the gesture rubs me wrong so I snatch my hand back, scrunching my nose.

“No, no you’re not. You’re going to Radiant Garden. You know where that place’s Keyhole is, it’ll be easy.” He assures me. I clear my throat, and I’m sure he thinks this will make my life a lot more pleasant, but I’m hardly feeling better, instead I’m thrumming with nervous energy. 

“Right, don’t get caught by more people that love me.” I roll my eyes. “You’re a dick.”

“You can be mad if you want, you’re gonna do it anyway.” He says, and I know I am, and he knows I am, but it’s still pretty shit that he feels a need to state it aloud. 

“I am mad, by the way. I think you’re a fucking dick for sending me into Arendelle and not even warning me who I could run into. Or what it would make me feel.” My face contorts, and I know my next move is a lot less focused, but I don’t think I’m half as in it anymore, I think I’m far more eager for this match to just end, even if it’s a blow out for him. Maybe that’s his whole point. 

“You’re the one who dug yourself deeper.” He reminds me.

“I just want my life to feel normal again.” I sigh, feeling a headache start to brew. Fuck, I hate this.

“This is your normal now, you know. You’re gonna feel a lot less conflicted when you get over the fact that things are changing, and you can either go under, or do what your friend Elsa did and climb on top of that horse and ride it, it’s really your choice.” Poetically, he knocks a piece of mine aside with a Knight and declares “checkmate.” 

He collects the pieces and I don’t mourn them or my defeat, instead, I stay rigid, arms folded, mouth contorted.

“Fair warning…” The Master begins, sealing up the box. “If you’re not quick, you are going to run into people. Not your redheads or anything. Just figured I’d save us both the trouble.”

I’m not particularly disappointed when he packs up and leaves. But when he shuts the door behind him, I’m quite aware of the things about him that are similar to Xigbar. The Master is extraordinary at shoveling his mission so deep down my throat that I’m gagging too hard on it to remember what the sorry state of my life is like.

It’s in the shower that I drown in it, it’s while I’m brushing my hair that I’m hyper aware of how painful the repetition in my thoughts is, like the constant poking of a bruise not allowed to heal. 

“Doesn’t it ever get tiring?” I ask my reflection in the mirror. Chasing around my own misery, collecting it as it tries to leap out of my hands. Do I need to feel so constantly guilty? What the fuck is my problem.

I realize my hair is starting to dry, as I brush through it again, and bite my lip. Weird, I decide, for me to get distracted while brushing my hair. But I shake my head and pin it up again and I don’t steal more than a glance at the spot of hair growing back.

My clothes are an absolutely tattered mess, I need to get to Shibuya, this is unwearable, so I opt for some of the training clothes from within the chest of drawers. Everything is my size, leggings and a T-shirt won’t impress anyone or offer anything practical for combat, but they will suffice for a quick trip to Radiant Garden. I reexamine the bright red shirt I pulled out and shove it back into the drawer, opting for a black hoodie instead.

I’m not doing awkward reunions again. And I’m not dealing with my phone, which buzzes on my nightstand. 

Contrary to what the Master said, I’m damn convinced that this doesn’t have to be my reality if I don’t let it. If I brush by, feeling as little as possible, creating as few memories as I can, this will just be a speed bump, painful but so easy to black out when it’s over. 

As I leave my room, I’m finishing connecting my thigh holster to my belt, my eyes focused on a series of loops, but my unoccupied ears hear the very clear incantation of my name. I look up, my door shuts behind me and from across the hall, Lauriam and Elrena stop their conversation.

“Well, awkward.” I say. 

“Hardly.” Lauriam shakes his head. “Forgive me if I overheard the Master of Masters direct you toward Radiant Garden, Elrena and I are headed there today, I was merely suggesting we offer you a ride. Since you’re still rather...inexperienced with light travel.” Lauriam’s words, as always, are lovely, but the way his teeth flash at my apparent failing is something he couldn’t hide if he tried. 

“No, I wasn’t referring to that, I was just remembering the last time you two whispered about me in a castle was when I was snooping on your guys in Oblivion.” Though I’m immediately regretting voicing my thoughts. Fuck, this is what happens when someone bugs me before I put my social face on in the morning.

“You’re embarrassing.” Elrena tells me. “And annoying.” 

“This is me trying to make small talk, no one ever taught me social cues.” I sigh. “You guys are really offering me a ride?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow. 

“Not if you make us ask twice.” Elrena winks and I smirk and so does she, and I’m happy that once more, my brand of misery can invite in a little company.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! So as I'm plucking away with this story, I'm guessing this story will be about 65 chapters...and then that's it. Which is wild. But yeah, Tempest will be 15 chapters, and I think I might have one more little side thing I want to put out for this series but that'll be the end of the Rueki series...don't worry though, I've already got an Axel/reader fic in the works for after this!

XXXIII.

“So what exactly does Douchelord Supreme have you guys doing here?” I ask, stretching my arms in front of me as Elrena, Lauriam and I step out of the light and into Radiant Garden. The instant fragrance of blooming flowers fills my senses, a dear sweet welcome home.

“Ha!” Elrena barks. “Is that what you’re calling the Master?”

“Lovingly.” I insist. “Kind of.” 

“And how could any of us forget, the particular sort of relationship you have with him?” Lauriam asks, a little more than a little sour, despite how he’d been so welcoming only minutes ago.

“We play chess when he wants to try to throw Xigbar at me, you’re not missing much.” I insist.

“I don’t know, that sounds awfully like your childhood dream.” Elrena teases. Lauriam merely rolls his eyes. “Anyhow, we have research notes to collect. Something about Vexen’s replicas tickles the Master’s fancy.” 

“It doesn’t intrigue you?” Lauriam asks.

“Definitely not.” Elrena presses her lips. “Why does it intrigue you?”

“The last time anyone so thoroughly sought after Even’s research, specifically on replicas, those replicas were used to bring hearts back from the past.” Oh.

“You actually think the Master’s gonna go out of his way to make that happen?” Elrena asks. Lauriam’s eyes narrow, heavy lashes clouding otherwise sparkling blue eyes.

“Well, if you see Even, kick him extra for me.” I say, quickly trying to turn things around. It works to some level, because both Lauriam and Elrena turn away from each other and back to me. 

“I suppose then, that there’s no lost love there?” Lauriam asks. “No amends made to you on his behalf?”

“Hardly, he’s still self righteous and condescending.” But I press my lips, rocking a little on my heels. “If you guys see Ienzo, or a middle aged guy with blond hair and a toothpick in his mouth, it’d be nice if you didn’t pick fights with either of them.”

“It’d be nice?” Elrena raises her eyebrows.

“Oh, I know better than to boss you two around. Just cuz I don’t act on that knowledge doesn’t mean I’m always trying to get punched.” I admit. Elrena laughs, Lauriam’s eyes twinkle as he looks rather fondly at me.

“Extraordinary. It seems you are capable of learning after all.” Lauriam replies as we come to the gates of the castle. “You’re here for the world’s Keyhole, are you not? This would be a natural place for us to part.” He says and I nod. It’s not like I’ve got too far to go, toward the Bailey, in fact, depending on where Even’s lurking, it might take them longer to get to the castle basement.

“Don’t keep us waiting, Bottom Feeder.” Elrena teases. I bite back a smirk, but still roll my eyes.

“Not my first rodeo.” I promise her. 

And I treat it like it isn’t, like it’s just another day, another Keyhole, another heart I’m protecting. It’s easy to grab a sphere from a pedestal and put it in a door, to take that same sphere, touch a glyph on a wall in another room and set the sphere into the opening that it creates. 

It’s just another series of riddles, and I know I’ll be able to figure them out before Elrena and Lauriam have even tracked Even’s lab down. Still, an odd sort of giddiness tickles my hands. This is the third world I’ve sealed is the one I’m happiest to be sealing. This is my home, I’m protecting my home. What the hell could possibly be wrong with that, how could my friends possibly think this is the wrong choice?

I’m half delirious but am grounded instantly. They do think this is the wrong choice, reason be damned. They won’t stand beside me, no matter what kind of proof I throw at them, I know better.

I aim Backbiter at the heart, inject the light Elsa gave to me and plunge out of the newly sealed heart, thankful when I’m met by Radiant Garden’s crisp breeze. A quick sweep of the area shows me that I’m still blessedly alone. I wring my hands. I’m sure I still have time, I think as I take a step out of the shadows and head toward the castle. Ice cream wouldn’t hurt, though it’d hardly be half as satisfying, having one alone. Venturing to the railing Lea and I spoke at before I left home, before I had fully offered Xigbar a place in my mind could be nostalgic. And miserable.

I’m alone, but how is it fair that I am, how is it right? Does this have to absolutely be happening? And why can I not just will time to speed up, to push past the ache and catapult me to the place where this is all done, even if it means skipping over any sweet parts along the way, even if it means not making a single beautiful memory until this is done?

“Rueki!” I freeze, back turned on the castle, hands balled into fists. I don’t need to see Naminé to register the chills her voice leaves on my skin.

“You really shouldn’t linger, Nam. Lauriam and Elrena are here, I don’t think either of them have particularly forgiven you for foiling their plans in Oblivion.” And I think this must speak volumes for the way they miss Stelitizia if they’re tolerating me or doing the same, albeit to a lesser degree.

“You don’t own this world.” Another voice, this one runs my heart into the ground. I pinch my eyes shut, hoping that when I reopen them I’ll wake up and this will be a dream. Stupid, stupid. If I could learn to light travel, this wouldn’t be an issue. I could run. It’s all I want to do. He knows me well enough to know it’ what I always do.

Instead, I turn, tilting my face just enough to make Del gasp. His green eyes blow wide and he rushes me so fast, so aggressively that all I can manage is to call forward my Keyblade. He gasps, calls his Keyblade to his hand and slashes at my defending blade, brows coming together, mouth parted.

He had no intentions of attacking me.

“Someone hurt you.” He’s looking very pointedly at my face, which I’m sure is ashen. 

“It’s a long fucking list.” I crank my Keyblade back and downright assault him. My blade moves so fast, if it weren’t for the screaming grinding in my shoulder and the ache popping my wrists, it would be so easy to lose track of how many times I’ve pummeled, how many times cries have ripped through my throat. I can’t defend for shit, but when I need him at an arm's length, the only defense I can understand is an offense. And poor Del, he’s keeping up so extraordinarily.

He’s good at this, someone’s teaching him. Or he’s involved in enough combat to force him to be quick, and sharp. Either way, I can feel my heart struggling to beat each time my Keyblade makes contact with him. Why did he have to be a part of this, why do any of them have to be involved in this? Why they sit the fuck down and let me fix this?

“Rueki, stop!” I hear Naminé plead, but I shake my head and realize that I can’t. I can’t still my arms, I can’t stop trying to fight him back, because he won’t move back! He’s not running away, he’s not backing off, he’s only twisting his blade to halt me and that wrecks my heart and mind and body twice as bad.

I’m the one going through the parallels. Elrena’s downright aggressive to me and Kairi is kind and who am I forming a genuine connection to and who am I screaming at? Xigbar is trying his damndest to own me and all Lea did was love me hard, not hard enough to bruise or hurt but to heal, and who did I take off toward, damn the consequences? I fought Vanitas, and when I was satisfied with the parts of me he had broken off, I called an end to that battle, but here and now with Del, who won’t cut into me, who won’t slam my face into pavement or snap my arm in two, I can’t stop myself. 

Dear Twilight, why can’t it just level? Why can’t I choose my battles and my sacrifices and handpick the things I need to go easy? Why do I have to have every bit of sadness I feel for leaving home beat me into the ground every time I wake?

My hands shake around Backbiter, I’m trying for weak, sputtering breaths that I can’t seem to even manage those.

Del’s an astute defender, letting me wear myself to the bone, chasing his dreams, becoming a hero even in my absence. Am I preventing a fucking thing? Or am I just going to have to watch my friends die no matter what I do? My hands feel too small, my shoulders, my heart, my head, how is any of me, such a tiny little human, supposed to carry this, supposed to twist the hands of fate? My chest aches, my vision’s coming in blurry, I hear Naminé pleading my name and Del urging her to go back.

My hand slips, Backbiter hits the ground, Del’s blade slashes diagonally, from my shoulder to my sternum.

I stare down, eyes hollow as I look to my homeless blade and the frayed fabric of my clothing.

“Shit.” He curses. He downright drops his blade and throws his arms around me.

I scream. I kick, I trash, I try to free my arms from his vice grip, I’m stronger than him, I know I am, but he’s hella determined and I can’t shake this stupid bastard.

“You fucking idiot, let go of me, don’t touch me!” I shriek, he pats my hair, tucking my head to his shoulder, and I whine louder. “I hate you, I hate you, let me go!”

“Come on, I know you don’t.” He whispers. “How long have we been friends? You really think I don’t know what happens when you’re scared?”

“Get the fuck off of me!” I demand.

“Del, you should set her down. We can treat her wound.” Naminé’s voice comes gently from beside me, my hand balls into a fist.

“I don’t want a damn thing from you, if you’d have shut your mouth, I’d still be at home!” I snap, teeth chomping together.

“I don’t think either of us really think that’s true, Rueki.” She shakes her head, I feel tears start to sting my vision. 

“I hate both of you so much.” I choke, voice growing heavy, strained.

“Okay, well, let us know when you’re done screaming and we’ll fix you up.” Del tells me.

“Leave me alone.” I protest.

“Wasn’t that the problem, Rueki? We did, all of us left you alone and we never should have.” Naminé cocks her head to the side and I swing at her, but Del’s good at playing protector and jerks me away before my fist can make contact.

“Don’t act like you know me, Nam. You’ve seen the memories I made, that’s really cool. You haven’t lived them though, you can get away from them, I can’t!” I growl, the sound grating my throat. “I don’t want your help, I don’t want you to fix me up, I want to get as far away from you as possible and fix what you damn idiots are doing to this realm! And if you could just leave it alone I could come back quicker and I wouldn’t have to...” I wouldn’t have to wake up without Lea, I wouldn’t feel like someone is constantly pushing my head beneath waters of guilt and fear.

“You’re so afraid of balance, Rueki, because you’re so afraid it’s unstable, but what about pure light? What about even the faintest speck of darkness? Won’t even a trace contaminate the world you want to build? What about your own heart, the nack you have for darkness that you don’t have for light? What if you create a world that beats you out of it?” Naminé asks, gently. I laugh, dry, hollow and pathetic.

“Well then hey, it won’t be any fucking different.” I stomp Del’s foot just hard enough so that he releases me, and the second his arms aren’t twined, I stifle the miserable, nauseating wrenching as I teleport off, heart hammering. I swear to Twilight, its beats echo around the empty halls of the castle

My eyes flick down to my chest, I swipe a hand across the gash. It’s not so bad, if I’m being honest. Del didn’t put any force into it really, it’ll heal on its own, there’s not even really any point in wasting a Potion on it. I poke at it a little, crinkling my nose when it smarts. None of this goes away, none of this is going to. The scar on my face that steals my friends, my new nose, everything is taking on a new weight, a new permanence. I look down at my left hand, the one missing the rings, and nearly fold.

There’s no escaping this moment. No fast forward, no way to make misery speed up like pleasure does, no way to etch by with minimal connections and just utilize my survival instincts to get through. My survival instincts are spent, I’ve lost them and any sense of goodwill just trying to stomach today.

Come back, I plead with myself, with my breathing.

“You’re right here, you’re in the castle, it’s just you, just you.” I mutter to myself, the way Lea used to when I’d wake myself screaming and it hardly has the same effect, but maybe the placebo of it all is slowing down my thoughts, however slightly.

I am barely stomaching today. And I’ll barely stomach tomorrow too if I can’t find a single scrap of pleasure. How many times have I told myself that while I may not be completely right, I can’t be completely wrong? How many times do I have to take guilt as penance before I shed it like a cocoon I no longer have use for. 

Footsteps clatter down the hall, I whip around, trying to still my heart when two sets of blue eyes fall on me.

“How in the realm did you get in without being spotted?” Lauriam whispers. Oh, we’re on alert.

“I teleported in.” Because neither of them care that I ran into my childhood friend, and it’s probably in the best interests of my moral self to tell neither Lauriam nor Elrena that Naminé isn’t far away. “I’m done, are you guys good?”

“Fucking obviously.” Elrena whispers sharply, eyes darting around. She and Lauriam are carrying bundles of research notes, whole fucking dissertations clutched to their chests. 

“Well, lead the way.” I mutter and Elrena raises both eyebrows, like she half expects me to ask something dumb, like who’s chasing them, and why they’re being sneaky, but again, just because I frequently disrespect their boundaries, doesn’t mean I can’t adapt from time to time. Just a little scrap of pleasure, I remind myself. Not getting punched is the only effort I’m required to make today.

Lauriam clutches his notes a little tighter, waves his hand and we all leap into his portal, sighing only when we make it to the other side. It speaks volumes, I think, how relieved I am every time I touch down in Daybreak Town, and that feels kind of nice. I’m running from the people I love and from my own insecurities every time I come back here, it seems, but there is something about the lush grass, the blooming flowers and pastel skies that do make this place particularly soothing.

“We should get ice cream.” I announce abruptly. Elrena snorts.

“No thanks.” She rolls her eyes.

“I’d be delighted, Rueki.” Lauriam tells me and Elrena blanches.

“Huh?” She lifts an eyebrow.

“Granted, I think Emyd and Ludor should join us, that was a particularly lovely evening, when last we had such an occasion. Perhaps you could gather them?” Lauriam inquires and I still feel a bit like he’s mocking me but--

But it was a good night. And maybe I’m not the only one grizzly and disgruntled, but high key tired of feeling shitty. I crack a grin.

“I’m sorry, I think I just hallucinated.” Elrena shakes her head.

“There’s a Moogle selling ice cream in town. I just think it’s really hard to be miserable when you’re eating ice cream.” I shrug. Elrena takes a minute, brown wrinkled as she mulls it over.

“No one is twisting your arm, I just felt incredibly nostalgic the last time, was all. There’s a simplicity of enjoying a sunset and ice cream with comrades.” Lauriam says, and truly, I see how easy it must have been for him to smooth over whatever tension he had with Elrena, because even I find myself drawn to him like this, all pretty words and nice promises. 

“I already told you both, I’m not interested in having best friends, the only reason I’m bothering with either of you is because I need something to scream at from time to time, and you’re both well conditioned in expecting it.” I raise an eyebrow, stealing a glance at Lauriam. I guess this kind of makes sense of their reconciliation, I feel a little better knowing she isn’t saddling up to him just because she caught Xigbar and I interacting, but I guess I should know better than to expect Elrena of all people to give into peer pressure. 

Still, she was a lot more candid with me before he was around, I could be naive, maybe even a little optimistic from the faintest hint of approval from someone who plainly doesn’t like me--coughSkuldcough-- but on an intellectual level, I thought there was almost a bond. When we sparred, she wasn’t necessarily playful, she was still as fierce as ever, but I got the feeling she wasn’t in utter contempt of my company. And then there’s the fact that yes, she does plainly hate Xigbar, and yes, she clearly feels some slight, not having access to her soulmate in one way or another. But she doesn’t owe me her defense, and I doubt she’d be this decent if she just felt like she owed me a debt. I almost get the suspicion that she’s asking us for reasons to change her mind.

“I hardly believe any of us are under the impression of an impending friendship, what say you, Rueki?” Lauriam asks.

“Definitely not.” I shake my head. “Emyd, Ludor and I were cool before all of this, and notice, we haven’t invited Vanitas.” I remind her, she snorts.

“What are we, some sad, cliche ragtag group?” She asks.

“I consider us more the assholes that no one likes.” I offer. She laughs a lot higher now. 

“It’s simply an invitation to forget the weight of the past and present. A moment of peace among those who understand.” Lauriam assures her. But her jaw clicks a little and she narrows her eyes.

“Emyd is a fucking dipshit, and he doesn’t have any of his memories, Rueki’s not from our time, how can you describe it like that and expect me to believe you’re not just selling me a crock of bullshit?” She snaps.

“Well, we won’t sell you then.” I shrug. “You can come late, leave early, leave and come back multiple times, doesn’t matter. Whatever you want. I just wanted some eye candy.”

Elrena groans, drumming sharp fingernails against the bundle she’s clutching to her chest. I get the distinct impression that she’s going to walk away and call me a bottom feeder again but abruptly she thrusts the research notes into my arms. They are surprisingly heavy. Fuck Even. 

“I’m getting changed first, I’m not wearing sweaty ass clothes for fun time, some of us care about hygiene.” She says and starts stomping off. I’m left blinking like a cartoon, after her.

“We’ll meet on the hillside near the gardens, you know the spot!” Lauriam has the good sense to call after her.

“You ever get whiplash from her mood swings?” I ask, when I’m absolutely certain that Elrena is out of earshot.

“I did get the distinct impression that Elrena was in a particularly awful mood the first time I encountered her here, if that’s what you mean.” Lauriam says.

“You still feel that way?” I ask.

“Certainly. I don’t think Elrena grieves in a way that normal people do.” Lauriam says. 

I wonder if that means her soulmate is dead, but I choose not to ask. Lauriam might not even know who it is.

“What about you?” I ask.

“I believe we should get these notes to the Master.” Lauriam says, nodding to the stack I carry. Between he and Elrena I have no idea where I’m supposed to tiptoe, I realize that I miss when they were one dimensional antagonists. At least then there was a pattern, a rhythm that could explain why they were dicks. Human error sucks.

Lauriam and I walk in silence, our footsteps echoing through the corridors, I hear music playing softly from one room, which is confirmation that Emyd is home from whatever it is he does through the day.

Suddenly, Lauriam clears his throat.

“There was some time before I lost my heart that I was distinctly aware of my sister’s passing and the very tangible possibility that someone had ended her life prematurely, possibly someone we trusted.” Lauriam murmurs and I keep my fucking mouth shut, because I know exactly who that person is. I’ll always be loyal to Ventus over Lauriam. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself in a darker place, I don’t think there’s ever a time she’d have been more upset by me. Sterlitzia was gentle, but certainly not weak. I am, in part, thankful that my memories of her were obscured in my time as a Nobody, but I’ve been awake for months now. I can hardly pretend that she would ever have been proud of me, of what I’d become. I simply think it is high time that I do better. For the both of us. I think in order for that, I must, on some level, feel better.”

“I get that.” I nod. “If this is gonna be real, we all need to deal with it.”

“I am envious of the Master’s abilities. Abilities to alter the course of reality, change it where he sees fit.” Lauriam admits. “You’re not the only one he enticed with such magic.”

“I’m here because my friends can’t manage to stop dying.” I say, clicking my teeth together. “This is reality, whether we want it to be or not, right?” I ask.

“That was the consensus we came to.” He nods.

“Well, you’re doing what you can to honor your sister’s memory. I’m doing what I can to make sure that no one I love becomes just a memory. Still, it’s getting difficult to like the skin I’m in.” I confess.

“So ice cream on the hill becomes a necessity.” He says and I smile, just a little.

“Right.” I nod. “A little moment where things feel more normal.” Where I’m in control, where I’m not a gaping mess of overflowing emotion. I chew on my lower lip, I run my hands over the weathered paper in my hands. This is real, it’s so fucking real and it’s a lot to handle. “I really didn’t expect us to be having this kind of talk.”

“Because of our opposing sides in Oblivion and additionally in the Keyblade War?” Lauriam speculates, I nod, like fucking obviously, man. “If you did as much snooping as you say you did in Oblivion, you’re aware, I would assume, that I wanted you standing beside Larxene and I then.” 

“Yeah, and then we pretty solidly became enemies.” I remind him, like he fucking needs it. If I can still so tangibly visualize our confrontation--me, him and Axel-- then I’m sure he can too.

“We were.” He agrees. “But I am hardly so bound to the limitation of one my incarnations.” He says, blithely, taking my notes out of my hands. My eyes widen. “I’d be embarrassed for you if you were.”

Mmm, no wonder he’s not screaming in reverberation from Elrena’s up and down attitude, he’s twice as catty.

“I'd be happy to take these to the Master.” He tells me. “Perhaps you’d like to clean yourself up as well?” Of course he’d be happy to, Lauriam is even hungrier for glory than Marluxia, but I guess he’s doing me a solid if he’s letting bygones be bygones, and he and Elrena were beyond civil to me, waiting for me to join them this morning with literally no ulterior motive. I do look a mess...

“If you’re sure.” I say, and I don’t even wait for him to protest, I hand him off the notes and start heading back to my room, toying with the edges of the tear in my shirt.

Once in my room, I snatch my phone off my nightstand and look at Lea’s contact. My thumb hovers over the button to call him, but at the last minute I opt against it and switch Kairi, who I send a text to.

‘I agree about not liking that talk, it went shitty. I’m really sorry, thank you for reaching out to me after it. I still have some feelings, but I think I miss you more than I’m angry. If you don’t mind texting through it with me, just so I don’t get discombobulated, that’d be cool as hell. I mean, if you even want to talk to me anymore.’

Half of me wants to send her an ‘I love you’ or ‘hope you’re doing good’ or something else sweet at the end, but I know she doesn’t need assistance forgiving me. I left so that I didn’t have to deal with my friends feeling how they did, in my presence. They were free and so was I, to emote how we wanted, to chase the paths we wanted. There’s no sense in me showering Kairi with the sweetness I deprived her of now. Almost immediately, she texts back.

Kairi: I don’t like how it went either, but what is up with you? Nam and Del just got back from Radiant Garden and said that you freaked out on them? Del said you looked scared, if you feel like someone is coercing you, just tell me how to get to you and I’ll come save you, Rueki.

She’s too good for this world, but her words leave me confused. I certainly don’t feel like a damsel, am I actually giving off that aura? 

‘You probably don’t want to hear this, but I actually am doing what I want this time around. I’m not done being mad at Naminé and Del’s dealt with so much worse from me. I want to make things better with US. Do you think we can make amends and be on different sides’ 

It takes two of us to make that choice, and I never would have stolen that away from her before, I have no business starting to now. 

Kairi: Of course I do! I just think you’re really frustrating and misguided, I think you’re being kind of selfish too, knowing how numb I feel, knowing the way light has treated me and thinking that’s the answer to everything. I don’t think any less of you, but I think you should know this does upset me.

‘I think it was selfish of you to throw your life away. Xemnas wouldn’t have killed Sora, Xehanort didn’t need him like he needed you. You were erratic, and careless and Riku and I paid the price.’

And I’m willing to bet that if I got on the phone with Riku right now, and it was just him and I, he’d understand what led me here, he’d understand why her and Sora being so quickly snatched from our lives made me want that to never happen again. Not necessarily agree, but understand.

I get the sinking feeling Isa might, too.

Kairi: I guess we both needed a time to be selfish. Can I ask you why you think this is the way?

‘I think the only way any of you won’t throw your lives away again is if I make sure that you don’t. I have pull on this side, I can save any of you from getting thrown away like collateral damage, I can stop another war from ripping us all apart again. That’s why I wish you guys would get off my back, I won’t have to be away as long, I can get this done faster if you’d all trust me.’ 

Kairi: It’s not you that any of us have trust issues with, it’s the company you’re keeping.

‘Um, have we forgotten that Skuld exists?’

Kairi: Skuld’s a bitch, you know that Sora, Riku, Roxas, Xion, Del, Amaya and I wouldn’t say a damn word to her ever again if you didn’t want us to.

‘You know who’s name is missing from that list, you know why home isn’t a good place for me. And please don’t take my choices away from me Kairi. I’m not being swindled by Xigbar or the Master of Masters, I’m not some stupid kid being tricked. I know the risks, I had time to weigh my choices before I made them, no one pushed me into anything, this is what I want.’

Kairi: It’s just so hard to believe that we’re supposed to do this on opposite sides. I’m afraid that whatever the outcome is, we won’t come back together the same.’

‘Maybe it’ll be better.’

Kairi: He is broken up about you, by the way. Axel, I mean. I don’t know why he wants it both ways, to have her and Isa in his life and you too, you’re enough. But it’s pretty obvious, he could live without them, he’s a wreck without you.

Oh my heart, it breaks so unevenly, knowing that the pieces won’t just fall off into her healing hands. 

‘I don’t want to talk about him right now. When I’m ready to get a hold of him, I will. I want you to know I was mad at you for leaving me behind and that when you died, Lea helped me a lot, but he wasn’t what was missing from my life then. You were. I put anything I could in your spot and when you got home and all of this shit started, it was just too much to try to put you back. I am so sorry I kept you at a distance, I just can’t ever lose you again, Kai. I’m scared I’m not going to know how to bring you close until I’m certain I won’t lose you, but I can’t control any of those things. I can fuck with this damn war, but I can’t control life and death. I don’t like my life without you. It’s not fair.

I set my phone down and tug my shirt over my head, replacing it with a baggy, white hoodie that nearly falls to my knees. It’s so damn soft, I could melt into it, and most importantly, there’s a pocket in the front that I can store my phone in. So I do, placing it in the pouch as I leave my room and knock on Ludor’s door.

I know Emyd’s home, but who knows what Ludor was--

He answers the door without a shirt on, looking bleary eyed and spent. I clearly just woke him up.

“Sorry, rough day?” I ask. He chuckles, like I don’t even know the half of it. 

“Recon in Shinjuku would not have been easy even if they were not repairing an inversion.” He sighs. My eyes widen.

“Shit.” I say.

“That does about sum it up.” He nods. “Not that I’m particularly looking to set my own weight on you, what can I help you with, love?”

“Well, if you’re not feeling too much like hell, Elrena, Lauriam and I were gonna grab ice cream. You know, like we did the other day. I wanted to invite you and Emyd.”

“That, I can make an effort for.” Ludor replies, sneaking back into his room, holding the door open for me. I stand in the doorway, hip on the door frame, eyebrow raised. 

His room is nice, sleek even, decorated in black and whites with only the subtlest hint of a gold accent, but that gold is downright vibrant. He pulls a white T-shirt out of a set of black drawers, his earrings rattle against each other as he tugs said shirt over his head, and I feel quite confirmed in Elrena just being an antagonist when she said he was in love with me. There is absolutely zero seduction being attempted here, and he surely could have tried. He’s not bad to look at, and is admittedly cut as hell. 

“You’re bleeding less than normal after a mission.” He says, yanking on a pair of boots.

“That’s cuz I’m stronger than Del.” I say. Ludor’s brow raises, his eyes flick up and he stops. After all, he was the one who had to watch me lose it when Xemnas made a power play to recruit Del. To hurt me. 

“I can’t imagine that feels extraordinary.” He says. I shrug.

“Better than running into Kairi and Lea like I did yesterday.” I press my lips. And better than running into Cid, too. 

“It’s odd, isn’t it? The way we’re being encouraged to use the intimate knowledge of these worlds that we have. It’s hardly nurturing.” Ludor remarks, finishing with the first boot and then tugging on the other.

“It’s better than Xemnas.” I say. We’re both silent for a quick moment, I chew on my lip. “What’s Shinjuku like?” I ask.

“Industrial.” He answers. “Advanced, it’s more of a business district than Shibuya, less fashion, less fuss. I think you’d rather like it.”

“Probaby.” I nod. “It’d be nice to have a day off where we weren’t all wrangled together to go play fight each other. If we could get out and actually have a day to let off steam with only the people we wanted to be around, that’d be a lot better.”

“Are you suggesting that we collect Emyd and venture to Shinjuku at the earliest convenience?” He chuckles.

“Emyd hates fun things, don’t be silly.”

“I don’t hate fun.” I hear Emyd’s voice sound off behind me and my face lights up. As is usually the case with him my enthusiasm becomes difficult to stave off, I wheel around and hug him quickly.

“Dude you have been such a hermit lately.” I accuse.

“No, you’ve just made crummy friends.” He wrinkles his nose. “I don’t want to spend time with Xigbar and Elrena.” My face goes hot. I forgot that in castles like this, no one minds their business.

“Admittedly, I’m shocked you’re allowing Xigbar the time of day.” Ludor says from behind me. My phone buzzes in my pocket.

“We’re not having an intervention, we’re having ice cream, come along.” I roll my eyes, tucking under Emyd, leading the way down the hall as I pull my phone out of my pocket.

Kairi: I wish I could take back what I did, Rueki. I think we’d have so many less problems if I wasn’t just so worried about Sora. I am sorry, I was scared, I saw someone that means so much to me in danger, I know you know what that feels like. You probably understand better than I want you too right now. But you can be mad at me, you can be as angry as you want at me, but stop being mad at yourself. You’re human, it’s okay that you don’t have these wild powers. Stop faulting yourself for what I did. You aren’t related to my actions at all. I won’t take away your choices from you, but don’t do that to me either. Just say you’re pissed and lay that all out right away next time you’re mad at me, you don’t need to force me back to where I used to be any more than I could fill that spot. You needed a friend that was different from how I used to be, but you’re still my best friend, and if we’re talking, then I hope it’s cuz you feel the same. Are you still mad? I think if I could be mad, I’d be pretty pissed at you for leaving, but I don’t think that this has to stop us from being friends. I think it just means we should change the way we support each other. 

What she says sounds so good, but I’m teetering between always wanting to change and never wanting to, I know a lot of this is on my inability to keep my head straight and the way fear ruled me so heavily before I changed sides, but I think I’m mourning the carefree way we sat on the beach or watched movies. I think I’m grieving the way my heart inevitably felt light as air around her. 

I think there’s too much of my past, of my life that I want to hold onto but can’t. I remind myself that there’s a reason that we’re texting this and not on a call with each other. I have shit to sort out. Kairi knows this, Kairi is still my best friend, and when I can find the correct way to formulate things, I can get back to her. This doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Taking my own advice, I find Lea’s contact and start typing out a message.

‘I’m not running toward someone else, Lea. I’m running toward what we talked about wanting, what I thought we both still wanted and that’s happiness and peace. Not a quick fix, but an honest to goodness promise that our future isn’t going to be filled with you going off to fight and me having a panic attack. Don’t call me a villain, don’t insinuate that I’m laughing at you in the arms of someone else, because I’m just as alone and I think that’s how I want to be right now. I left so you could hate me as much as you had to at a distance, so that we could come back together, detoxed and finally free from this light and dark bullshit. I love you, but I think we both need to save our words for when they can do something more than complicate each other. We disagree on something big, I’m codependent as hell. I need to sort this out without you.’

I press send.

This is reality, this is my choice, this is happening. I can’t etch by and neither can he. I have to shout from the mountains, speak loud and clear.

That’s the only way either of our hearts make it out without falling to pieces in the absence. 

Lea: Is this you ending things?

My heart skips a beat. I go into his contact log, select options and block him.

Oh Lea, it can’t be all or nothing. He can have my heart, he can have my soul, he can have my whole damn life, but not right now.


	35. Chapter 35

XXXIV.

I hear Shibuya before I’m even through the portal, the hysterical laughter, the shouting, the music blasting, ads shrieking, every single noise demanding more attention than the last. The city is stiflingly hot and thick with smog and once more, I’m reminded why Axel wanted to drop me off here.

A group of girls in neon clothing giggle as they run past me, chasing each other. There’s something so satisfying about the way anyone can disappear in these bustling streets. I inhale deeply and there’s the smell of cooking ramen wafting in from down the road, and way too much perfume drifting probably off of the group of girls. This place is perfect. I have no idea where to find Neku or what to even do now, but I’m in no particular hurry and I don’t especially care. 

There’s a weight that comes to looking down at the phone in my hand and knowing full well that I can’t receive anything from Lea. His phantom messages haunt me in ways that real ones can’t. I find Kairi’s contact in my phone, a quick distraction.

‘It just sucks, that you and I have gotta try to meet each other halfway. I know some of this is on me, but I really miss when things were so easy with us and we didn’t really have to think about anything. I miss just being a like….a normal fucking girl with her best friend.’

I find Neku’s contact in my phone after sending the text to Kairi, biting my lip as excitement starts to quicken my heartbeat. This is the place I was once supposed to have a fresh start in, a place that has been continuously transformative for me and is bound to be still, when I crave transformation the most. A boy walks by, talking loudly on his phone. This is my victory lap, this is where I get to come for an easy shot at light, among my friends, where I don’t have to be anything other than myself and myself can be something I choose. There’s a whole realm of possibilities. I can shed my own skin right here on the streets and who would even know, who would even care?

‘You busy?’ 

I send the message to Neku just as Kairi texts me back.

Kairi: I miss that too. You were my favorite part of getting left behind. But maybe we can do something like that again.

‘What, you want me to call you and tell you about my day?’ I attach an emoji rolling its eyes, I can already tell how that one would go down and there’s nothing that would be pleasant about it. That’s how Kairi and I get into another fight and someone accuses me of being a villain again.

Kairi: Maybe we start small? Sora held my hand the other day. Him, me, Riku and Namine got ice cream and he held my hand and I think I low key died.

A smile that I can’t shake curls onto my lips. The girl’s a fucking genius, and much as I hate the prospect of us having off limits topics of conversation, she’s reignited the giddy, frivolous joy that we shared so easily before.

‘Are you legit telling me you still haven’t kissed? The fuck is your problem?’

My phone dings again with another message.

Neku: I’m in school…

‘Lame, ditch. I’m at Hachiko.’

Neku: You have issues…

I can already tell I’m going to hate texting Neku if he ends everything in elipsis 

Neku: Shiki says hi....

Yup, hate it. 

‘Well how much longer until you guys are out?’

Neku: Rueki, it’s the morning…

‘Well, you can either meet me in the next half hour or I’m going shopping by myself.’

Neku: Cry me a river…

_I’m alone and sad_, I want to tell him,_ come be a friend._ But I refuse to be and I don’t. How can anyone be sad and alone in a place made of overpopulation and flashing lights?

‘Fine, but don’t get pissed if I’m too drunk to text you by time you’re out of school.’ Tempting as it is, it’s a rather empty threat. I need to be at least functional to get a little kid to think I’m safe to give her light to, and I get a feeling that stumbling around, half blacking out will not be an effective method. I do think that it might frighten Neku mildly and while I will tell Kairi all day long to get her ass back to school, I’ll admit to being a brat right now. I do want my friends to skip one day to come hang out with me. One day will not kill them.

Neku: No you won’t, we’ll meet you at Wildkat 4 around 3…

‘Dick.’

Neku: Your fault for showing up on a school day…

‘Your fault for dying fifty thousand times. You were fifteen like three years ago, you shouldn’t be in school still, dropout boy.’

Neku sends me a slew of middle finger emojis which I guess is like the same thing as getting a hug from Neku. I huff, toying with the edges of my hair.

Well, I guess I have time to kill.

And kill, I do. I have zero body hair, a refresh on my lowlights, a proper trim, complete with layers and all, my eyebrows have been perfectly sculpted, I sat like an angel at a makeup counter for a damn long time, and was even talked into buying a matte black liquid lip that I’m still not sure I can pull off. Well, I mean, I can now with a face full of makeup and a smokey eye blended to filth, but I know my normal capacity for makeup includes mascara, a bold lip and a small wing on my eyeliner. There’s no way I’m going to be this glamorous again, looking fresh to death in a pair of jeans and a black and gray sleeveless hoodie, complete with enough accessories to clog up my closet. Come to think of it, I haven’t been this put together since… Since my wedding day.

Fuck me, I set an anxious hand against my stomach. I’m gonna eat, I decide. I’m going to eat something wonderful and not think about Lea, and not really think about anything other than how fucking majestic I look. I venture out of the salon I had stepped into, checking myself out in the shop window. The piece of hair that Vanitas wrecked still isn’t fixed, but it’s a lot less distracting with my hair curling gently down my back. If I had any talent in the beauty department, I could actually be pretty. 

I know the way to Wildkat well enough not to really pay attention to the path, no one around is anyway, I’m one of many glued to my phone, thumbs moving at rapidfire as I look over Kairi’s text and respond in turn.

Kairi: I’m not trying to ruin our friendship!!!!!!!!!!!

‘You shared a fruit that ties your destinies!’

Kairi: But what if he meant it as like ‘just friends’?

‘Just like...pretend you tripped and fell and landed on his lips, see how he responds.’

Kairi: You’re such a jerk!

‘Or maybe you could pass him a note, asking him to check yes or no if he likes you.’

Kairi: No one does that!

‘You’re right, you’re totally right. Just show him your tits, see where it goes from there.’

Kairi: You’re so embarrassing.

‘You know I’ve told some people on my journey about you, we’ve been accused of being sisters.’

Kairi: I can totally see it. I’d steal your diary and you’d show everyone my baby pictures once I got old enough to care about being cool.

‘I couldn’t yell at you for stealing my clothes though, they’d fall right off of your skinny ass.’

Kairi: But you’d totally beat up anyone who was bullying me.

‘I would beat up anyone you asked me to. And then some, I have issues.’

I nudge open the door to Wilkat with one shoulder as a woman right around my height stomps out. She’s grumbling under her breath, a man with white hair follows right after her. She damn near knocks me off my ass, a flurry of ginger hair as she leaves the building. I’m struggling to stay upright, but as soon as I turn to shout at her, I realize that she and the man have straight up disappeared into the crowd. 

It’s all in the appeal of Shibuya, right?

“You serving bad coffee?” I raise an eyebrow as I make my way into the building. The door closes behind me and other than a telltale head of ashy hair, Sanae Hanekoma is the only one in the building.

“Sorry missy, we’re closed.” Hanekoma says, standing up a little straighter. He narrows his eyes, takes off his indoor sunglasses then barks a laugh. “Oh, it’s just you. Welcome back, blondie, you look good.” 

Joshua turns around languidly in the barstool he sits in, lips pressed into something unpleasant as he looks me over.

“Lipstick on a pig.” I think I hate Joshua, I think that’s a thing.

“Dude aren’t you so tired of being such a dick like all the time?” I ask.

“Hardly, it’s fantastic for my complexion.” Joshua counters, I huff.

“You’ll have to forgive us, blondie. Shinjuku’s on the brink of rebuilding and their higher ups aren’t exactly in the best of moods. We’re trying to discuss a better plan for how the Reaper’s Game should be organized, since it clearly has uh...gotten out of control.” Hanekoma casts a quick glance at Joshua. “To say that Shinjuku’s Conductor isn’t feeling particularly um…”

“She’s a nightmare.” Joshua mutters. “If she could have the decency to fall from grace like their previous Composer did--now there was a Composer.” Joshua sighs.

“Yozora’s just a little green. It’s only been what? Fifteen years. Remember how much you screwed up in your first hundred years?” Hanekoma teases. Dear Twilight, I can’t get away from the ancients. 

“Pish posh.” Joshua mutters. “It’s not him I particularly have an issue with, the last Composer was just a lot more adept at keeping that woman in check, granted she was just a Reaper back then.” Joshua seethes around ‘that woman’ and I’m sure he’s referring to the redhead who damn near knocked me over.

“Ludor, right?” I ask. Joshua and Hanekoma both turn to me, eyebrows raised. “The Composer in Shinjuku before Yozora, that was his name, right?”

“How on earth would you know that?” Joshua balks.

“He’s a friend.” I shrug. Hanekoma barks out a laugh.

“Why am I not surprised?” He shakes his head. “Well, come take a seat, blondie. What can I get for a loyal customer?”

I do rather like Sanae, I think as I take a seat on the barstool, setting the bags of clothing I had in my arms, down on the ground. There’s something welcoming and wise about the man, even if he does low key judge the hell out of me. This is the type of person who I would trust for advice, the type of person I feel richer having talked to. It’s not utterly unlike the Master, who I do genuinely think knows best. But I actually feel bad when Sanae isn’t a fan of my choices, versus half the time, I’d like to kick the Master in the shins.

“Coffee and pumpkin soup never sound bad.” I grin.

“Coming right up.” Sanae nods, busying himself. “Can you kids play nicely or do I need to intercede?”

“You’d best carry the conversation.” Joshua waves an arm, sighing in defeat as he collapses onto his elbows. “I can admit when I’m not my best self.”

I’d like to think that sometimes I can too. Maybe.

“So, blondie, word on the street is that you ran away from home.” Sanae says. I choke. How did I forget already that that the Master had mentioned my friends were already here? This wouldn't be a bad place to look for me, admittedly. 

“Who showed up?” I raise an eyebrow, because that does matter.

“Sora, Riku and Kairi.” Joshua mumbles from next to me. My mouth presses into a line. Kairi explored Shibuya and I wasn’t even here with her. That does make me feel a little cold. “All searching for you.”

“I’m pissing some people off this time.” I say. “But I think it’s the right thing to do.”

“And you think doing it alone is the only way?” Hanekoma asks.

“I’m not necessarily alone, I’m just making friends in different places.” I admit. Hanekoma freezes, turns his head to regard me out of the corner of his eye and makes a soft, noncommittal sound. “What?” I ask.

“That’s just very different than last time. You were pretty rigid last time you were here, not really accepting that change was bound to happen.” He reminds me. My pout twists as he sets a cup of coffee down in front of me.

“Well, that’s all my life does anymore. And I was kind of avoiding it, but now I think I would rather ride my own storm than weather it.” I’m not sure it makes sense, but Hanekoma nods, as he ladels out some soup.

“Ahh, a metamorphosis.” Joshua sing songs. “Not unlike our dear Neku.”

“You interested in being Josh’s Conductor, blondie?” Hanekoma asks. I don’t know who says ‘no’ quicker or louder, me or Joshua. 

“I’m not dead.” I remind him, huffing. “And I’m busy.”

“Right, so what is this mighty mission you’re undertaking that’s got your friends upset at you?” Hanekoma asks. 

“I’m saving the worlds from darkness.” I announce plainly as he sets a bowl of soup in front of me.

“Is that not Sora’s motif?” Joshua asks. 

“No, I mean it is. But right now they’re on about this thing where they’re bringing balance to the world, like that’ll help.” I roll my eyes. Joshua actually laughs at this. Not scoffs, not rolls his eyes, but laughs like it’s genuine. 

“Such a naive sense of optimism. Would it please you to hear they’ll learn one way or another that humanity isn’t capable of cleaning up their own messes?” Joshua asks, and I decide no, that doesn’t actually help. 

“I’m not giving them a chance to worry about cleaning up a mess, I’m doing it myself.” I say.

“Well, what about Neku?” Hanekoma asks, casting a look at Joshua, who waves his hand. 

“Yes, yes, Neku is plenty capable of transformation if I’m guiding him. Not like he’s talking to me right now.” Joshua mumbles. Oh, that’s something. I guess Joshua and I are both miserable little friendless fucks right now.

I mean, I’ve got Ludor. And Emyd. And having Elrena and Lauriam join us for ice cream yesterday was engaging as all hell, even though nothing could quell Elrena’s combative nature. It was a good night, all things considered, one I could have clung to, one I could have willed not to end.

“And whose fault is that?” Hanekoma asks. Joshua just makes a noncommittal noise, waves his hand and leans forward against the countertop. “And you…” Hanekoma looks up at me, I pout.

“Please save the guilt trips, I feel like shit already.” I admit. “You guys ever hear about people being actual soulmates. Like no bullshit, cut from the same cloth soulmates?” 

“Obviously.” Joshua rolls his eyes.

“Sure, it’s rare, but I’ve seen it a few times.” Hanekoma nods. 

“Well, Lea is mine. And he’s maybe not a huge fan of my choices.” I admit. Hanekoma makes a face.

“Tough luck, blondie. That’s the part of soulmates that no one wants to talk about, the connection is electric and instantaneous, but there’s no greater pain than that connection being broken.” Funny, that’s the part of soulmates that I’ve heard nonstop about. 

“There are good parts of it?” It's easy to forget when the Master is breathing the contrary down my neck.

“A connection to someone so intense it marks your body? A guarantee that no matter what happens or when or how or if they like you, they’ll understand you? Is there anyone in this world that doesn’t want to find a missing piece that fits so snuggly into what they’re lacking?” Joshua asks.

“It’s just as faulty of a relationship as any other. You can still hate that person, you can still leave that person.” I mutter.

“Or you can stay with that person, you can choose that person. You’re human, you’ve got those freedoms.” Hanekoma reminds me. I wrinkle my nose.

“I’d give them up in an instant if he was guaranteed to pull his head out of his ass and admit that I’m right.” I counter.

“Ahh, the sweet push and pull of each half of the soul, grasping for control.” Joshua sighs, I shoot him a scathing look.

“What exactly are you doing that he’s hating that much?” Hanekoma pauses to tuck a towel into the pocket of his jeans. He leans across the counter, to where I’m finishing my soup. I pause, very pointedly, mid bite, insinuating that he back the fuck off, but he doesn’t. 

“I am encouraging the Princesses of Heart to gift their light to their respective world.” I say, very carefully, very cautiously. Sanae Hanekoma is still inhuman, I remind myself. He’s no less capable than the man I’m serving, and I can already imagine the lecture he’s going to offer me and my unbalanced motivations. I don’t want him trying to stop me.

“And why would a Princess of Heart need to do that?” Hanekoma asks. “They’re tasked with protecting the light, Heartless, Noise, the whole lot are still capable of attacking the world’s heart.”

“Not after I seal it.” I say flatly.

“And prevent the passing of that light ever again.” Hanekoma reminds me.

“Yeah, that’s basically the point. I know this is just another world that’s normalized children giving their lives for things they shouldn’t be responsible for, but I’m not budging on the fact that I think it’s not okay. Half the princesses are fucking minors.” I huff.

“So you’re swindling children before anyone else can? A real martyr.” Joshua sniffs.

“No, I’m asking their guardians.” I counter.

“Effectively taking away their ability to choose.” Joshua says. My eyes narrow to slits.

“Fuck you.” I say. “You have no idea what that kind of responsibility has done to the women who have held it, you have no idea what it’s done to me and the people I love.”

“Right, right, who am I to hinder a woman on a righteous cause. Anyway, good luck with Rhyme’s brother, that’ll be a fun one to explain to him.”

As if on cue, the bell to the shop chimes as the doors burst open. A girl with short black hair, who looks remarkably like Xion minus the brown eyes and glasses leads the group. Her face lights up, a huge smile breaks across it. 

“I told you’d she’d be here already.” The girl announces. A shock of orange hair presents itself as Neku leans over her shoulder, headphones off of his head for once, but wrapped around his neck.

“Do you not answer your phone?” He asks. His nose wrinkles as he assess me, cutting past the girl. I notice he’s very pointedly stepping toward the side of me furthest from Joshua, who has perched himself up hopefully. “You’re wearing a lot of makeup.” He announces.

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you too.” I roll my eyes, watching the dark haired girl walk in, with a tall guy in a beanie hat following her, and a young girl with short, blonde hair. Rhyme, I remember, from the five seconds I encountered her in Sora’s dreams.

“Oh, hello.” She says, nodding at me, young eyes surprisingly wise. She stirs me, I sit up a little straighter, suddenly feeling like I’m talking to another inhuman entity. 

“Whaaa????” The guy in the beanie hat gasps, staggering back. “Yo, Rhyme, how do you know this girl?” He’s so animated, it’s fucking obnoxious. I shoot Neku a look. He’s smirking, he clearly agrees.

“She’s friends with Sora and Riku, correct?” Rhyme asks and I nod.

“I can totally see that. You got that for to be serious vibe ‘bout you like Riku does.” Beanie hat agrees as I begin to lose brain cells. For to be serious...

“She’s friends with us too, guys this is Rueki!” The black haired girl announces. “Rueki, it looks like you met Rhyme, this is her brother Beat!”

“That’s cool and all but I’m sorry, who are you?” I ask. Joshua peels out this high, obnoxious as fuck laugh that makes me contemplate breaking my mug over the countertop and shanking him with it.

I’m here with my friends, I’m here to hang out with people I enjoy, this is one of the few times I don’t have to resign to being a grump with violent tendencies, I remind myself. Especially in Shibuya, where I can say anything, be anything. After all, I surely still have an enlightenment on the way.

“Right, sorry, you haven’t seen me like this.” The girl admits, blushing as she chews on her lip.

“It’s Shiki.” Neku tells me. My eyes widen.

“You changed your look.” I say, though I guess I shouldn’t be a surprised by a teenage fashionista giving herself a full makeover. 

“You could say that.” Shiki admits, but something registers in my mind.

“But I’ve seen pictures of you looking like this next to someone who looks like you used to on Kingstagram.” I recall. 

“It’s a really long story. Josh had something to do with it, he helped me get over my insecurities.” Shiki says, twiddling a wave at Joshua who offers her one back. So the grudge isn’t a collective one, Neku’s just over his shit. I wrap an arm around Neku’s shoulder, leaning into him a little. Poor kid, I’m not surprised by the parallels we’ve once again found in each other, but I do know it sucks to stand up to a friend and have no one be on your side. Like hell if I won’t be on his, no matter the reason.

“Well good, I’m glad to hear it, Shiki. You’re basically the cutest thing ever, no matter how you look.” I smile and she laughs, giddily.

“Coming from you! I see you learned how to do your hair.” She nods at me.

“No, no, I just got it done while I was waiting for you guys.” I admit and she looks at me blankly. “I got here this morning, Neku wouldn’t ditch class so I did some shopping, did he not tell you?” 

“Um, no!” Shiki pouts and I see the exact expression that the pink haired version of her would’ve worn. This is most certainly still my Shiki. “Neku, that’s no fair, I totally would’ve skipped to go shopping with her! Are you here to shop? Please tell me you’re here to shop, you look so good, but that's not a jeans shirt, I saw this skirt at D+B though that would look so good on you.” She then proceeds to explain why said skort would be perfect for me, what with its stretchy white fabric and chain detailing. Neku grins.

“Still happy to be back?” He teases.

“Someone’s gotta share in your misery, child.” I grin. “Yes, I am here to shop.” I concede.

“Yay!” Shiki cheers.

“And for you.” I say, trying to be as respectable and genuine looking as possible as I turn to Rhyme. I am trustworthy, I am doing heroes work, I am on the right side, Lea or not, praise or not.

“Whoa, blondie, I don’t know you or nothing. Whatchu trying with my sister?” Beat snaps. Neku straight up plucks my arm from his shoulder so that he can hold my hand. Damn. He’s as defensive of me as--

Roxas. 

My lower abdomen curls into knots.

“Yes, do tell what notorious activities you have planned.” Joshua leers. Neku straight up squeezes my hand tight enough that the joints pop. That's not really saying much though, for how bad my hands have hurt lately.

“Rueki’s not a bad person, she’s not trying to manipulate anyone into killing themselves so that they can manage the underground.” Neku snarls and my face goes bright red. So I wasn’t the first person offered the Conductor job, hot shit.

“I was merely stating that there’s no one I’d rather have at my side, it was a compliment, really.” Joshua pleads, breaking his facade to open up to this boy right in the middle of everything. Neku flat out turns away from him and I squeeze my friend’s hand back. 

“Children shouldn’t be responsible for cleaning up the fate of the world.” I reiterate. Neku flashes me an embarrassed but thankful look.

“Thas’ cool that she’s your friend and shit, Phones, but blondie still hasn’t answered me.” Beat crosses his arms defensively to his chest. Rhyme heaves a sigh, cutting forward.

“Beat, please.” Rhyme protests. “It’s Rueki, correct?”

“Sure is.” I nod. Beat mutters something under his breath about not beating the bush anymore. I'm pretty sure he means beating around the bush.

“Well, Rueki, I'm curious, why would you be here to inquire about me?” She cocks her head so sweetly to the side, she could very well melt a hardened heart. My heart.

“Your heart’s good, I think it could save this world.” I blurt, her informed innocence cracking me straight open. This could be it, I think, this could be the magic I’m waiting for, the transformation, the revelation, whatever this world is going to bring to me, I could find it in her.

“Whaaaa?” Beat wrinkles his nose as he looks at me. I might have to procure a muzzle for this boy, I swear.

“Sometime within the last year, your heart has been burdened by the glory of light, something that I think is too much for any one person to hold onto. I’ve seen someone grow up with it in her heart and the way it sterilized her feelings. I think that light would be better returned to the world’s heart so that it can protect not just you, but everyone in it, rather than you having to protect it.” I explain.

“That sounds very reasonable.” Rhyme agrees. “I wish I knew more about this light though, I’m afraid I’m not very aware.” 

It should be shocking, I guess, the ease with which persuasion is coming. Suddenly, I’m an artist, alive in this trendy town, painting pictures for this little girl of the bright and beautiful and blinding future that I have in store, that I’m striving toward. I come alive with lovely words I didn’t know could come out of my mouth. The mouth of a trash can. It’s what happens when you believe in a cause into your bones, I tell myself. It makes sense that I can rave for days about the world I want to see appear. But Hanekoma meets me with this shifty gaze and I keep waiting for him to take a knife and cut through the portrait I create. Through Rhyme’s wide eyed infatuation. I weave a fairytale and Beat and Neku and Shiki all lean in to listen.

When did I become this magnetic force, I wonder? And why does it bother me than I’m actually succeeding in my goals?

Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I have enough shining sets of eyes on me to know I’ve sealed the deal. Even Hanekoma has returned to pouring himself a mug of coffee, not a bad word falling from his lips, despite the uneasy way he regards me. It's because I'm right, I tell myself. Even a superhuman cannot contest with fact.

“I suppose if it’s for Shibuya’s benefit, and it won’t hurt me, what do I really have to lose, Beat?” Rhyme cocks her cute little head to the side, linking her arms behind her back. 

“Yo, but it’s like your light, so that’s like your happiness and stuff, right?” Beat balks, and I’m just about to correct him, that it’s artifice, but Neku just shakes his head and pats my hand. 

“It’s really not worth it.” He whispers. 

“I don’t think so.” Rhyme shakes her head. “I was happy before I started feeling this way last year. And we’ve lived through so much, I think I have even more to be happy about now.”

“You’re happy you lived through so many Reaper’s Games?” I lift an eyebrow. 

“Why not?” She lifts her shoulders. “We lived, that’s enough.”

Oh, to be that young and so bathed in the warmth of simplicity. Life feels a cold comfort to me anymore. But I’m in Shibuya, could this be a transformative moment? The window in time that leads me to not feel half as broken? Somehow I doubt it.

“Well, you know where the Keyhole is.” Joshua waves a hand at us.

“Just like that?” Hanekoma lifts an eyebrow.

“Oh, I know when I’m not wanted.” 

“I’m not dealing with this.” Neku rolls his eyes. “He’s just gonna throw a tantrum.”

“Neku, you got your way, you’re not his Conductor, you’re allowed to be his friend.” Shiki insists, causing Neku’s face to burn.

“And I’m also allowed to be mad, Christ, Shiki, I’m not having this conversation again!” He snap, eyes blown wide, effectively forming a very shamed blush on her cheeks.

“Neku…” She begins but he just shakes his head.

“Rueki, can you just do your thing and get us out of here?” He asks, pointedly us. As in me and him. Why am I not surprised that we’re both frustrated with our respective friends? Why can I already imagine the two of us huddled under Hachiko, bawling again? 

“Cut the shit, Phones, you wanna be pissed at Josh, be pissed. But some chick ain’t taking my sister’s light anywhere without me!” Beat demands. Rhyme tucks a strand of hair behind he ear.

“I too, would like to see what’s done with my light.” Rhyme confesses.

“She can’t take you guys into the Keyhole.” Hanekoma shakes his head. “It’s pretty much bound to send all of you back to the UG.”

“Well then how are you able to do it, Rueki?” Shiki asks. I bite my lip, excitement now buzzing beneath my skin as I take a few steps back from the group, hold my palm out and present Backbiter, to less than enthusiastic eyes. “Is that a Keyblade? It’s really heinous.” 

“Yeah, remind me to throw some glitter on it later.” I mutter. “I promise, the thing only looks scary.” I assure Rhyme who walks right up to me, completely pure and unafraid.

“I don’t think it’s scary.” She shakes her head. “It’s cool.”

“I come from a place founded by a race called Al-Bhed. There was a lot of focus on scientific development by them, including weapons, this looks like it could’ve been modeled after one of the first weapons they created.” I share with her, watching her face brighten.

“Then it’s cool, it’s perfect for you!” She nods. “But I’m curious about those slots.” She taps the circular ones I noticed on the hilt of the Blade.

“I am too. I just noticed them recently, guess we’ll see.” I shrug.

“So that’s what you need to get to my light?” She asks, setting a hand on the flat of the blade.

“Mmmhmm, and how I get out of the Keyhole unscathed.” I nod. “I just aim it at your heart, extract all the light that’s not naturally yours and go give it back to the world’s heart.” 

“Well, then I’m ready.” She smiles, taking a step back, spreading her arms wide. I crack a smile. All of these damn princesses pose the same way, like their heart’s light is such a literal thing, like I don’t just have to aim my Keyblade somewhere on their body and take the light. 

I don’t correct her though, I just take a step back, aim my Keyblade and do what I’ve done with the last three Princesses, effectively gathering up the light and only the light that doesn’t rightfully belong to her, which is actually trickier with Rhyme. This girl’s heart was gleaming before she was even a Princesses of Heart. How jealous am I? Painfully so, to where I’m tasting bitterness on my tongue and keeping my expression very purposefully neutral by time I finish.

“That was all?” Rhyme raises her eyebrows as I lower my blade and banish it altogether.

“I told you, easy and painless.” I nod. “So, I can got to the Shibuya River and meet you guys at Ten-Four later.” I offer. Shiki’s face brightens.

“You’re talking like you’re a real Shibuya native. I love it.” She beams. “Here, let’s exchange numbers, you can text me when you’re getting close.”

And we do and she leads the crusade, Rhyme and Beat following her out the door. Neku, however, stays firmly planted at my side.

“So, I’ll see you at Ten-Four?” I ask. He snorts.

“Fat chance. Come on.” He rolls his eyes, tugging at the hem of my jeans like a petulant child. I bark out a laugh and follow him. 

“So, clearly you’re going through it.” I begin as we find our way into an unfeeling crowd with no interest in the conversation we have to shout to each other over the roar of loud music, laughter and excited dialogue.

“Yeah, says you. Sora was looking for you, what’d you do to piss your friends off?” He asks, slowing a little so that we’re too close for either of our comfort, but can hear each other a little easier. I clear my throat, pressing my lips.

“Well, you’re not the only one over being used as a pawn in someone’s game. So, I’m ending the game.” I answer.

“Because that was a really helpful and not ominous answer at all.” He tells me, dryly. 

“Yeah, I guess I am becoming the worst.” I admit. “Maybe that’s what happens when you get sick of getting recruited for every damn war under the sun and no one you love will just dip out of it and run away from responsibilities with you.”

“So that’s why they’re chasing you?” Neku asks. “Cuz you ran away?” I realize quickly that while Sora and Co might have stopped here, they clearly didn’t hang around long, certainly not long enough to taint Neku’s view on me, and for that I’m thankful. Here’s at least one friend who gets to hear my side of the story.

“More like they're chasing me cuz I joined the other side.” I confess, Neku flashes wide blue eyes at me. “Okay, but if you could get out, make sure that there was no way any of the UG would sucker you back into their business, wouldn’t you take whoever was offering you up that deal, up on it?” 

“Who’s offering you the deal?” He raises his eyebrows.

“The fucking eldritch horror we met last time I was here. The Master of Masters.” 

“Rueki.” He gripes, like he’s already not on board and almost sick by this idea.

“Okay, but think. You can have everything you want and your friends lives aren’t the cost and if you can just stomach being villainized for a few months, you can have your cake and eat it. You can promise no more Reaper’s Games for Shiki and Rhyme and Beat, and that the only time Joshua or Mr. H will talk to you again, is for friendly banter.” I explain.

“It sounds way too good to be true.” He shakes his head, hiding his mouth in the cowl of his shirt, the way I’ve come to realize he does when a thousand vulnerabilities are floating through his head but he’s too much an introvert to voice them. 

“Don’t take me for some idiot who would trot along at some super human’s heels. Give me more credit than that.” I snap, and Neku’s face comes out of the cowl, face embarrassed and pale.

“Sorry, sorry.” He mutters.

“I’ve done the research, I’ve seen what I’m capable of, I’ve seen the world that the Master is trying to create. I know that it can’t be the wrong choice.” I swear.

“So what’s the catch then? You had to leave Axel to make it happen?” He nods down at my hand, my face burns. Of course he noticed. Observant little fucker always catches more than I realize he will.

“Why does there have to be a catch?” I ask, stubbornly.

“Everything’s got an entry fee.” He mutters. I hate that a teenager knows the cost of life this well, this sullenly.

“There’s gonna be blood on my hands. A lot of it. I made enemies of some new girl Lea’s best friends with.” I make a face. “I had to cut ties with people I love because they were afraid of upsetting the status quo to do what’s right.” 

I watch him swallow, the gesture looks bone dry. He knows all about this.

“So that’s why I’m an ostracized loser. What about you?” I ask and he just rolls his eyes, I’m sure wondering how I can possibly be so annoying. 

“Joshua wants me to be his Conductor. He says Shibuya needs a reform and there’s no one he’d trust more to be his second in command.” Neku grumbles. “And all of that sounds flattering as hell, if I didn’t have to give up my life for the job.”

It’s like the oxygen’s been sucked from the world. We round the corner to some sort of overpass, a far less populated area than Cat Street. I find his hand, he doesn’t swat me away.

“And he brought it up like what a small cost, like who’d miss me, who’d care, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, the world keeps spinning when I die, and I have the power, the Imagination to make a real difference.” He grumbles. 

“And the others know about this?” I balk.

“Yeah. No one wants me to go anywhere, they’re all pretty insistent that I belong in the land of the living with them. But it feels hollow as hell when I have to hear, nonstop about how Joshua has such a great point and I’d make an awesome Conductor and Shibuya would probably flourish if I kept it safe.” He admits. My heart turns to dust. In the middle of the street, I throw my arms around him, pressing my face to his shoulder, holding him as tight to my body as I can manage. “Rueki, you’re making a scene.” He gasps out, but I shake my head into his chest. 

“You don’t dare go anywhere on me, Neku Sakuraba. The change I’m making will only hurt me short term. Don’t you dare run to progress to lose this. Your life is precious. It’s precious to me, I’d take Shibuya to the ground for you kid. I’ll steal this fucking light and shoot it up myself, if you want this world to fall apart.” I promise him, talking a mile a minute, He laughs, humorless, crackly.

“Bet you’d even find a safe haven for all of us.” He murmurs and I nod into him. 

“Always.” My fingers press into his back. 

“One of these days, I might take you up on that.” He tells me, sweeping my heart up in the wind. My own words, used against me. How the hell do I tell him to learn from my mistakes, what words can I learn to teach him to leap over the hurdles I collapsed in front of? If I could even find a way to change this boy’s life and make sure he gets better than the empty handful I was given, I would call that transformation enough.

I want to change everything, myself, the world, my husband’s mind. Constantly, always, like a compulsion. This would suffice for now though. I could feel satisfied that Shibuya lent me some of her magic, that I became a better woman, that I had found the missing pieces I need so bad from this world, if I could mend this poor boy.

But I can’t. I come up short, so I release him and squeeze his arm.

“We grumpy assholes with too much baggage gotta stick together.” 

And that’s as poetic as I can manage to be, before I slip into the world’s heart and release Rhyme’s light. I wrack my own brain as we head back to the Scramble, as we text Shiki that we’re close and get met with hugs that should feel like homecoming from her, Beat and Rhyme, who all want to hear the uneventful tale about how I’m keeping Shibuya safe. I spare so many details, the story hardly makes sense. But I get to play it off as a ditz when Shiki shrieks and points at the white, shift skort in the window of D+B, with chain detailing and artful rips in the side.

“Omigod, Rueki! That’s the one, I told you, it's perfect for you!” She swears to me, and I listen and let her drag me into the shop. I let her throw too many articles of clothing at me and buy every last one of them. One of them will grant something, one of them will mean the world, one of them will brighten my insides. One of them will remind me why I delight in coming to Shibuya so thoroughly.

I’m holding massive bags by time we get out of one store. I have spent embarrassing amounts of money, Neku’s assessing me with obvious nerves and a raised eyebrow.

“What now?” Rhyme asks.

“More shopping!” Shiki suggests, so contagious that how can I refuse.

“Yeah, sure.” I agree, like consumption will finally fix me.


	36. Chapter 36

XXXV.

We spend hours in the mall. Time ticks by, I don’t stop swiping my card. There’s no limit to what I can treat myself to, what I deserve. I’ve sealed off four worlds, I’m actually doing this, I’m actually changing the world, whether the realm wants to pat me on the back or not. 

The more bags I carry on my arms, the more delighted Shiki gets. Her enthusiasm is a disease, she snakes her arm through mine, and leads me around, chain linked to her side, from shop to shop. 

She loads up a bag of shoes, looking so pleading and so insistent that I need every last pair. There’s a part of me that’s quite aware that I need none of this, but I’m so fucking sick of skimping by on the bare minimum, of doing the least I can for myself. I deserve this inssesnt pile of shoes, especially the black booties with studded belts across them and the tiniest trace of a heel. 

It’s practical, I think, as I stock up on tactical supplies in one store and hair ties in another. Shiki’s talking to me a mile a minute and I’m convinced I can keep up if we talk over each other and neither of us ever stops.

Neku looks the epitome of uncomfortable. Rhyme and Beat head home to get dinner with their parents. But Shiki checks the time on her phone and waves her hand.

“We’ve still got more hours of good shopping!” Shiki insists.

“I’m starving, if you’re going to keep dragging me along, can we at least get some food?” Neku’s brows come together. 

“Sure, sure.” I wave him quickly toward a hotdog stand that he’s none too enthusiastic about coming up on. He even makes a big show of whining while he’s in line, but Shiki starts telling me about all of these body creams that will help fade scars. Scars that I’m over getting, scars that only bother me in my lowest moments. But the girl is buzzy and popping like an energy drink and I know the best choice would be to buy every single thing she suggests.

“You don’t strike me as a really lavish person.” Neku makes a face. “Or at least you didn’t.” His tone is heavy with something I don’t want to dissect. I toss my hair over my shoulder.

“I don’t get to come here half as often as I’d like, and once you’ve been shopping into Shibuya, nothing compares. I've got to stock up.” I don’t sound like me, not really, though I don’t disagree, the fashion here is a cut above and the clothes fit like they were made for combat without having to look like it. I remember very much the elated look on Axel’s face when I first paraded around in the tiny black shorts and cropped bustier. 

I remember the way we made up, the way we stood here and everything change, the way the fact we loved each other got to come first.

I was too disconnected to believe anything magical was happening, but I don’t think I am now and nothing magical is happening.

He isn’t calling me on someone else’s phone. He hasn’t showed up here. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to, I’m watching the world come together at my hand and…

And there’s not a thankful voice in the crowd.

My hands shake as I finish swiping. Somewhere, my mind registers the woman at the counter telling me that my card was declined.

Am I not doing something right? Am I not flourishing properly, am I not parading around announcing my heroics loud enough? Why does no one know I’m helping them and why does it matter? I’ve never needed spotlight before, but I’d die to burn in it now, just to feel its warmth searing into my skin.

“Rueki?” Shiki asks, I can’t move. What am I doing wrong? Am I lying to myself? Is this all happening too easily?

“Rueki.” Neku wraps a hand around my wrist, my eyes dart up, he sees something in them that shouldn’t be there, I know it. Because I’m good, I’m fresh out of fucks, I’m having fun. This is my victory lap, this is my reassurance, this is--

The bags in my hand are massively heavy.

“I think we should go.” He tells me.

“Yeah, it’s getting late.” Shiki nods. “We have school in the morning.” She didn’t care a haf hour ago, what the fuck is the problem now?

The worry in their eyes answers that question, my gut churns. Abruptly, I don’t want company, I don’t want half this shit I purchased. 

“Yeah, cool, thanks for hanging out with me.” I say in a low voice. “See you guys around.”

Before anyone can stop me, I dip into the crowds that never seem to disintegrate. They consume me, devour me, but this time, I feel them start to digest me, chew me up and spit me out. I slip behind a shop, press my hands to the brick wall and gasp desperately. My heart’s suddenly as loud as a fucking drum, remverberating at a volume that seems to come up, from out of my bones, to penetrate the air.

“Xigbar.” I whisper, desperately, pinching my eyes shut. “Xigbar, please, I need you.” I beg after a moment of nothing. I wave a hand, trying to think of bright sparkling light, but the only thing that happens is I start to hyperventilate, little gasps and grunts filling the air with my futility. “Please?” My voice shatters. “Please, I just want to go home.” A portal opens up and I stumble through, cheeks streaked with mascara, wiping deteriorating blush off of the face I can’t bear to look at anymore. My chest trembles, I can’t feel my hands, and the hooded figure waiting for me isn’t who I expect.

The Master freezes in the room we all met in, the first day I came to this world, this massive study that I can barely make out with my bleary eyes. Night time creeps in through the windows, blacker than I’ve ever seen the sky in Daybreak Town.

I let my bags go, and somewhere in my mind, I register him asking me if I’m okay, but everything in this entire place feels like I’m underwater. 

“Yeah, yeah doing great.” I choke out, wiping my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Just like...a bird flew into my eye or something, Shibuya’s weird.” And I’m wishing I didn’t spend this much money on a smokey eye I was just going to cry off in the end, fuck me. I turn away, kicking aside some of the bags I set down, some I already want to light on fire. Or maybe just return, because I don’t actually like spending, I didn’t need bags full of sexy underwear and high heels that I’m legitimately never ever going to wear. I hate myself for a lot of reasons lately, but the most prominent, of late, seems to be because I so badly need external validation. And I don’t think I ever have before.

“Sugar, Shibuya was supposed to be fun for you.” He tries, in a gentle voice and I just nod, hoping the bobbing of the hair and the red highlights that I want to cut out, because they evoke memories I want to forget, suffice. Why did I have my hair touched up, why didn’t I cut it short and let the remnants of red completely go, why can’t I let her death go?

Why can’t I take my mind off of the disappointment I know is flashing through Lea’s eyes? The disappointment that must have flashed through his eyes when Kairi came back and told him there was no sign of me in Shibuya, when she searched? Fuck me, why the hell am I so soft?

“It was tons of fun. An actual joyride, ten out of ten, would recommend to a friend.” I agree, wiping back more tears. I’ve got five seconds to cut this the fuck out. Five seconds to remember that I’m not in Xigbar’s presence--though I don’t particularly relish the idea of crying around him again--and need to calm right the fuck down. “But this is the second time in a row your little urchin hasn’t come when I called, and he and everyone else are doing a shit job at teaching me how to light travel, so if you want your ship to not sink, maybe teach him to listen!” I throw my hands up and wheel around, feeling only traces better at this obnoxious burst.

The Master chuckles, light and breezy. 

“I’m sorry, my ship.” He just shakes his head, but I know he knows what I mean, so with the exasperation I’m sure he expects of me--everyone expects of me--I cross my arms to my chest. He crosses the distance and claps a hand, cold but firm, to my shoulder. “Come on, I’ve got something to show you.”

“I think I just wanna go to bed. I’ve probably got another princess thing tomorrow.” I shake my head.

“You actually have a research thing for the next little bit.” He tells me.

“Fuck.” I grumble.

“You’re good at research.” He reminds me.

“Yeah, cuz I can read, that’s not special. What I’m cursing about is the feeling I have that you’re gonna turn this into a bonding thing with your shit children.” I confess.

“My shit children.” He shakes his head and pats mine. “Great idea. Come along.” 

I cast a sideways glance at my bags. Fuck them, I’ll figure that out in the morning. 

The night air is delicious and cool in Daybreak Town and I realize immediately I’ve never been out much after dusk here, because I’ve never seen the stars quite like this. I halt, sinking the baby heels of my boots back into the grass, eyes drying up through marvel and sheer force of will combined. The Master halts and turns to look at me.

“They’re so bright. I feel like there are less, but I’ve never seen them shine like this.” I bite back a grin that almost feels wrong, so soon after a breakdown. Transmute City was cloudy, murky almost in its industrial setup, however podunk of a ship stop the world was, it had everything I could have possibly loathed about a big city, including the hazy skies, never giving way to true light, whether day or stars. 

“Just wait until you’re done gathering up light. There will be fewer, but they’ll be brilliant.” He tells me, turning to face me, hands resting on the back of his hooded head. 

“When will that be? There’s all this research you want me to do and timing you need to have line up. It’s…” I bite my lip.

“You want the hard part to be over.” He nods.

“I do.” So bad. “I don’t know what I fucking expected though, you don’t get anything without sacrifice, but I guess I jut throught I already did enough fucking sacrificing for the time being.” What was I going to get in Shibuya? A little consolation prize at the halfway point? A little treat for self induced misery? It sounds fucking idiotic now, but, I did want it. And I’m pretty sure I still do. I run a hand over the fabric of the skort I bought and changed into, immediately upon Shiki’s request. Yeah, yeah I do still want it. I want to unblock my husband’s contact and let him tell me how much he loves me until I feel good about my heart shattering, crumbling off like stale bread. Who the hell is that fair to though? I didn't get this far, I didn’t dig myself down this deep to crawl back up at the halfway point. Lea deserves to feel his feelings to their fullest extent. So maybe he can be over them and ready to forgive and love me unconditionally by time I have seven lights snatched up. 

“Well, what do you want the good parts to be like? Soft, like this? Like watching sunsets and eating ice cream and looking at stars and sunrises in peace?” He asks. I chew my lips and realize, no, definitely not. That’s not enough and it hasn’t ever been, and that seems to be an exclusively Rueki problem. 

“I think I want it bigger.” I want the giddy euphoria of throwing dough at Kairi or swinging around light poles in Traverse Town with Sora, or dancing in the rain with Lea. I want the feeling of chasing one brand new bit of magic every single day, I don’t want the spark that makes the pitch black tolerable, I want the burst of sunrise, of beaming stars. I really don’t think I can settle for the twilit path, when I see the sun coming up at the edge of an obsidian nightmare. 

“You want it bold.” He nods. “You want the stars to only light and shine for you, you want the sun to chase your shadow like a storm, you want reds and violets painting the sky at the end of every day and I can make that happen for you, sugar. I gave humans Keyblades so that Aced could have purpose in combat, I came up with the idea of Unions because Ava believed that everyone deserved companionship. I made you for Luxu, I can create an endless realm for you, for my alchemist. But bold rewards warrant bold choices, sugar. You cannot create the kind of world that’s going to light up your heart, on a mucky canvas. So be bold, be bright. Stop casting paint on a pitch black sky and falling apart when you can’t see colors.”

His words are beautiful, a metaphor scrawled in pure gold, but one thing rings truest and causes me to bite my lip, to bite back an ache that registers, deep and throbbing like an infected wound.

“I’m Luxu’s gift, when the others got so much more. Poor Luxu.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “I’m the most fickle thing you could have gifted him.”

“You are conflicted.” The Master nods. “Sloppy, frayed at every seam until I don’t know which part of you is raw edge. But I really do think Luxu needs that. You’re not the only one who looks up at the stars at night and is too cynical to voice how bad you hope there’s more.” 

My face grows cold, my cheeks sting and I don’t think the cooling, night air has much to do with it. 

“What happened to Ava?” I ask as he starts to walk again, and I have to take two steps to match his one, his purpose. “You’ve talked about her before, but no one else does. Not even Luxu will say much.”

“Because Ava was Luxu’s favorite sibling, she might have been everyone’s favorite, and sometimes the beautiful lie is better than the ugly truth.” He says, I wrinkle my nose.

“I don’t think that’s ever the case.” I reply.

“You wouldn’t have preferred never to learn that Lea was your soulmate? You wouldn’t have preferred to sit blindly by and pretend another war wasn’t happening?” He asks. I chew on my lips, he cocks his head and though I can’t see his face, I’m sure he’s looking at me. “Ava did what I did, what Luxu is on his way to. Ava exhausted her form. If it weren’t for your actions, she’d still be in limbo, wishing so badly that she could protect the light I tasked her with. Even if she doesn’t trust me with it, anymore.”

“I’ve never met Ava.” I remind him.

“No?” He cocks his head. I pout.

“You could give me a hint.” I remind him.

“You've got a free for all question, you can ask.” Yeah, but that’s not what I want to waste it on. “Plus the game’s no fun if I have to tell you everything, you’ve gotta earn it. Regardless, that’s why I needed that information on replicas. Luxu’s current body ages, he’s a lot older than you. What kind of parental figure would I be if I brought you two crazy kids together just in time for him to die?”

“Kids.” I roll my eyes. “He is a lot older than me. I’m still married.” I’m sure my words fall on deaf ears. “Why not just steal a replica at that point? Even’s a weirdo enough, I’m sure he’s got one laying around his lab somewhere. And more to the point, why’d you need the information on the life force in Midgar? Is that related.”

“That kind of detective work warrants an answer.” He pats my head. “Yes, I need a body for Luxu. But the reason I needed research notes was because I might need more than one replica.”

“Foresight’s awful shit if you still have to say ‘might’.” I remind him. He chuckles.

“I see all possibilities through my Keyblade’s eye. But you’re human, your friends are human. So many players in this game aren’t fixed and that means that the amount of possibilities is limitless. And I’m sure it’s not a surprise to you, one the possibilities is that your friends attack us without relenting.”

“I’m not fighting them.” I shake my head. “I don’t think I can.” Though I fought Del, though I snapped at Naminé, though I ran from Lea and Kairi and in another life, combatted Sora, Roxas and Isa. 

I know their weaknesses all like the back of my hands, that’s a gross thought.

No, I can fight them, I guess I just want so badly for it not to go that way.

“You’re strong, sugar.” He tells me as we come up on what looks like a giant rock, in the night. I narrow my eyes.

“So you’re creating an army of replicas to pluck them off?” I grumble. 

“No, I’m creating an army to hold them off.” The Master answers.

“So you just have dozens of people you trust to not kill my friends? Great hearts, innocent intentions?” I roll my eyes.

“Not dozens. Hundreds.” We close in on the giant rock and I discover it isn’t a rock, it’s an almost finished tower, my eyes widen. 

“What is this?” I ask.

“This is why Luxu can’t hear you. In between space and time, the only person I trust to linger between the two, your voice might exist to him, but he doesn’t have a clue if it’s today or next week or last year. And that’s if the plane he’s on hears it at all.” No fucking wonder the Master is so interested in Ludor’s affinity for time if he’s lingering between time and space. I gape at the structure, blinking in the sight. “The ark was unfinished for so long. But thanks to it, I can restore much. Including the hearts of every fallen Keybearer from the age of fairytales. Everyone that died in the first war, can be welcomed home.”

“That’s not possible.” I shake my head. “You’re talking mass rebirth, how could that even be possible?” I ask. 

“Because I found the realm’s lifesource. Within a Keyhole, hidden safely away. Our Keyhole actually.” The Master explains.

“How the hell are you keeping it safe?” I balk as synapses connect in my mind. He needs more replicas created than what’s in Even’s lab, he needs to learn how to utilize the world’s lifesource like power, like the raw energy that Midgar pulsated with, to bring back the dead. My heart quickens, I choke on a breath.

“That’s tricky, right? Unless it were stored within a box, so safely, securely sealed, that nothing could penetrate it until the circumstances lined up just so.” The Master says. My eyes flash.

“Like the chess box.” My eyes widen.

“Exactly like the chess box. I told you, I’m rather spent answering the whole ‘what’s in the box’ question.” He tells me. “The answer is obvious, something I want to protect. How else can I restore those who tirelessly fought for the world’s light.”

“Fuck.” I curse. I will give the Master this, he’s a damn genius, and I’ve forgotten that nothing great is happening to me, because I am part of something great. Something limitless. I’m a cog in the machine, but what a machine it is. 

Be bold. Okay, message received. Whatever it takes to power this.

“I’m still stuck on the whole rebirth thing.” I shake my head.

“Oh, no one’s ever truly gone. Not really.” The Master shakes his head. “So long as we exist in the hearts and minds of others, no one’s ever really dead. Well, unless you seal their hearts, but you know all about that.”

“What?” I ask.

“Isn’t it an old legend among the Al Bhed? About ancient summoner’s giving their hearts up to bind a massive evil?” He asks, I blink.

“To be honest, I’ve got no clue. I’m not actually Al Bhed, and I just kind of took the old legends to be no more than stories.” I admit. 

“Guess that’s your problem with fairy tales then, huh? The all or nothing?” He asks, and to be honest, that’s my problem with everything. 

Xigbar steps through a crack of a doorway in the tower and flinches when his golden eye pierces the night and he sees us.

“Be bold, sugar.” The Master pats my shoulder, and before I have time to ask what that means, Xigbar leaps at me, through the midnight air, to grasp my face in his hands.

“Damn…” He whispers.

“You can’t hear her in the ark.” The Master explains and Xigbar shakes his head, sighing. 

“Guess not. You okay, little Rueki?” He asks, though I’m not sure he’s equipped to deal with me saying no, so I smile my little half smile at him and decide that even if it’s only temporary, I can stomach this gray area.

“I’m a bit better now.” I explain. “It’d be cool if I could learn how to light travel.” 

Xigbar releases my face and he and the Master exchange a look.

“You didn’t say anything?” Xigbar asks, the Master shrugs, blithely.

“We were talking about other things. You can give her the good news.” The Master waves a hand, then snorts softly. “Well, the kind of good news. You kids have fun.”

And with a pop of light that illuminates the night, he’s gone, and Xigbar and I are left behind, the air hazy like right after a firework show.

“You’re wearing a lot of makeup.” He tells me, abruptly and I snort, thankful for a man too weightless to keep me tethered in reality, for now.

“You’re not the first guy to not like it, I tried to get rid of it, but I think I managed to look more like I got punched.” I wave a hand and we laugh, Xigbar’s hand moving to my arm. 

“You finally got yourself new clothes.” He remarks and now I’m starting to get a little flustered, like come on, just make a comment, just ask my why I’m so fucked up and maybe kick me down the hill so I have something to cry about, fuck. 

“Yeah, no sleeves now, so nothing to light on fire, on accident.” I nod, and I have enough wrist wraps to frequently replace, if needed. Though my elemental halestorm has…

Eh, it’s only been a day, let’s not speak too soon.

“You look nice.” As if my body remembers that it can do weird, annoying shit, I start to crackle and Xigbar pulls his hand away, but I’m the one wincing. Thanks body, real cool. 

“Sorry, I actually didn’t mean to this time...but can you just...can you just…” I don’t know what I want him to do, but standing here, static in the air, has me wanting to rip my hair out again, has my heart hammering. I could cry again, I could sink to my knees, I could throw myself across the lawn and stare numb at the sky until the sun rises.

“Why are you such a wreck?” He asks and I almost breathe a sigh, though he’s a little too blithe it does help with my restlessness. The Master’s words echo in my head, my heart clenches in my chest.

“Because I’m scared that this is all there is.” 

We’re both quiet again and it’s satisfying but unnerving and I love it and hate it, and want to slap him to make him shout but I--

I want to press my lips to his to remind us both that we’re not dead yet, because maybe I’m not the only one feeling like I am. 

“I don’t want to spend every night looking at the fucking stars and settling into a nice cozy bed and just living so comfortably.” Mundanely, plainly, making me hyper aware of every bruise and scar on my skin, and maybe that’s what sets me apart. I can’t detach from the war quick enough, but I can never manage to weasel away. It’s never gone in my mind.

A gloved thumb brushes my lips and lights up my body. My eyes flutter shut. Just do it, I think. Just do it so I can react, just do it so my heart starts beating and I can be so distracted by a new type of eternal conflict that I forget the old and shed the skin that accompanies that.

Just do it, I want to tell him. I won’t stop him.

“What do you want, Rueki?” He asks.

“What do you want?” I counter quickly, eyes reopening, because I can’t fathom an answer. Not really.

I want Lea. I want him kissing my arms and neck and shoulders, telling me he loves me and that he’ll stand by me. I want the other side of this window, in a world where skies shine bright and the night sets blood red and Lea actually does come to my arms, to my heart, the fastest. Where we’re dancing in the rain on the beach, where we’re getting married every day, where I’m inhaling a dumb scarf that smells like him and we’re always making up but never have to fight to get there. I want to feel like sexy underwear and expensive creams and high heels without ever wearing them, I want drunk giggles and nachos with my best friend without the come down.

I want to dance on the clouds and never fall through when I remember they’re made of water vapor. But right now, I would settle for the promise of everything that Xigbar wants to give me. 

He hesitates a little, or maybe he just thinks, but his eyes are buzzing, humming like exposed wire, I rather like the look of it, but even more, I like the glittering of the scar on his face in the starlight. 

“When I was a kid, Ava and I used to catch fireflies in our hands.” He tells me. “We’d gather them up, and I’ve pretty much always worn these gloves, so I always thought it was damn cool, you know, seeing them light up through the cracks in my black fingers. Sometimes the others would join us, but neither Ava nor I ever wanted to let them go. Sometimes we’d sneak them into a jar in one of our rooms and sit under a blanket fort all night, talking about games the humans played with us, because they thought we were like them and that we were just little children as the fireflies lit our stories. Until the Master or Ira or Invi would come in and lecture us to go to sleep and release the fireflies. Ava would usually cry, and even though I was younger, I felt like it was my job as her brother to do the hard work for her and let them go.”

“So you want to never have to release them again?” I ask.

“No.” He mutters, mouth pressing into a line. “I never wanna see a fucking firefly again.” He turns away from me, toward where the sun will be poking out in a few hours, and I think I kind of want to stay this way, to settle into a sunrise with this man. “I’ve got one good eye, little Rueki, and I’ve spent the past millenia watching everything. I don’t want the fucking mundanity of catch and release. I don’t want to light the fire and wait for the others to come anymore, I don’t really want to do much of anything for anyone else again. I already told you, I’m doing this dance whether you want to or not, so if it’s a not, I’ll spend every second until Braig’s body rots, living like the world’s going to give out. There are sights I want to see, feelings I still don’t know that I want to have. And then I’m gonna die fucking gloriously. But I’m never going get up again and feel like I’m dragging the man’s corpse around with me.”

“Is that what it feels like?” I ask. “Body hopping.”

“Mostly.” He explains. “Not Braig, not really. There was a kind of connection. I’m as much him as I am me, maybe that’s why I can put distance between us when I’ve actually gotta. You’re not Braig’s soulmate. Be a fucking miracle if you were.”

Or if he settled into the body of a redheaded child instead of an adult guard. I don’t know how long he’s been Braig, I don’t know that I want to know, but if he grew up inhabiting a little asshole with bright red hair and green eyes, everything would be different. My insides wouldn’t be pulling themselves apart. 

I could stay up through the night like this, him relaying more stories to me, like he promised he would, like he did so many nights in a row when I couldn't stomach sleeping in my own bed at home. I see in him the same vibrancy I do in the Master, the same all consuming desire to be so much himself that I don’t quite have to be me ever again. He tells me about each body he’s hopped to, how he can technically be women, but doesn’t prefer to and that it’s easier to possess a baby or an older person, but the baby is obvious rather unpleasant until the child’s body becomes useable and an old person can be a waste, because the second that person dies of natural causes, he has to hop again and the hopping, well--

“That’s why I’m not following anyone’s directions anymore after this. It’s exhausting going from body to body. Knocked me out of a month, once. And it’s always the same. It’s my heart and theirs until their heart submits or dies off and lets me have control. It’s a constant pull for the reigns.” He explains as we sit beside one another, just at the edge of the Ark, on a hillside. My mouth is dry, I’m quite aware how much that feels like my relationship with Lea, the two of us shouting until something breaks off and falls apart in the other. How many parts of me died for him and vice versa?

How many times did we let that happen, and worse, could we have survived it if my own fear and codependency hadn’t taken the wheel?

“And Braig’s heart isn’t like that?” I ask.

“Nah.” He waves a hand. “We’ve both got control, I’m tired, little Rueki. I’m using that greedy fool as much as he’s using me.” 

I rub my eyes, he lifts a brow.

“Sleepy?” He asks and I shake my head.

“No.” But I set my head on his shoulder and he responds so quick, I can’t even try to swat him off, by wrapping an arm snugly around me

“You don’t need to be afraid, by the way.” He tells me, and I wonder if he’s referring to him, because I’m not afraid of him, but my brain is cloudy and hazy, so I just blink and wrinkle my brows.

“Hmmm?” I ask.

“Of this being it. I’ve seen humanity, I’ve see the way they etch by, I’ve seen them do next to nothing and look so close to burnt out, I’ve seen them do so much and think they’ve lived full lives, only to realize that in the grand scheme, they actually haven’t done a damn thing. I’ve seen selfless, I’ve seen selfish, I’ve watched life and death, and seen them all cease and start, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that humans follow the path already carved out. They dive into holes they understand because this world is fucking scary. A very small handfull dig themselves a new path. An even smaller lot walk the lanes in between. I’ve never seen a person cross every blade of grass though, quite like you.” He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. It sounds so pretty, I sound brave and poetic on his lips, and I think I like this narrative of me more than I like the one my friends crafted. Rueki is weak, Rueki is out of control, Rueki doesn’t know how to cope with what we’re doing, Rueki’s got a weak constitution.

Rueki’s the fucking anvil, tied to the ankles of every member of the group.

His gloved fingers brush my lips again and I hum, eyes still closed.

“I’m not brave, I’m afraid if I stick to the path, the shadows can chase me.” I explain. “That if I jump in the hole, they can all dogpile on me.”

“Who let you believe that kind of shit about yourself?” He asks. Myself, I want to answer, but that sort of honesty is too much to stomach right now.

“Tell me how you see me, then.” Again, once more, with feeling.

“Fucking remarkable.” He tells me. I hum. “Intelligent, alive. Human beings are boring, Rueki, but you are the single most exciting thing I have ever stumbled into. You are the only thing, in a millenia, that has made me feel real. You’re the only thing that’s ever made me want to be human.”

I wonder how many other ‘alchemists’ he used this line on.

“We should go to bed.” I tell him, eyes closed.

“Or we could stay up and watch the sunrise.” He offers. I just shake my head against him. “You’re turning into a wet blanket all of a sudden, kiddo.”

“Yeah, well, don’t ever let anyone tell you I’m not a letdown.” I murmur. He pushes himself up to his feet, my eyes open again, just so I can watch the leather of his coat.

“I thought this doesn’t work if we’re not honest with each other.” He cocks his head to the side.

“I’ve come to discover I hate honesty.” I tell him. 

He’s quiet for a long moment, and I contemplate telling him the problem is, if we don’t part, I’m definitely letting him kiss me before the night is through, and the longer this goes, the sleepier I get, the more I think it could just be okay for me to hurt as long as I get to fall into the spell of what he dreams I am, I can be happy. 

“The reason you can’t light travel is because your heart’s hardwired for darkness. Someone’s thrown a wrench into the Master’s plan. That empathy link is straight up sabotage. As if it’ll make a difference. That being said, since you’re too dark for light travel and too fragile for dark corridors, the Master’s trying to figure out a defense system for you, he thinks it’ll be easier to just set you up to make sure you can take a little bit of darkness and travel its corridors until after we’ve restored the world to being properly light.” Xigbar says, though he says ‘someone’s thrown a wrench’ like he knows who and blames them directly. I can’t say much better about myself, I’m pissed at Naminé for it all, too. 

“And what about my heart?” I ask. “Can you just… can you just give it a hit of light, just a little?” 

He rocks back on his heels and turns to give me a long, cold look. 

“Goodnight, kiddo.” He finally settles. I almost get up to clock him in the jaw. I crash back into the hillside instead, repeating the mantra of his words again and again in my head, until I can consider falling asleep.

I’m brave, I’m remarkable, I’m intelligent, I’m alive.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be bold and make bold choices.

Tonight, I’m going to cry the remainder of my makeup off on this hill.


	37. Chapter 37

XXXVI.

It’s two more weeks before I even speak to Xigbar again, which is probably a good thing, because I’m worlds smarter when I’m not focusing on dick, and prove that every time all of us assemble in the Master’s study and I’m at his side every fifteen seconds, chattering ideas in his ear about synthesis of replicas or streaming life force. If the other Foretellers didn’t look at me like gum on the bottom of their shoes before, they certainly do now. 

No one’s left Daybreak Town in two weeks, no one’s really left the study unless a fight breaks out and that happens probably every other day, and usually I’m not involved, something I find just shy of remarkable. Whether it’s Elrena going off on Lauriam or Emyd, or Aced and Ira antagonizing each other, I usually end up a neutral party. Always with a single golden eye trained to me. Half of me wants to grab Xigbar by his shoulders and remind him that I don’t owe him jack shit, not a night watching the sunrise, no honestly, not a fucking thing that he hasn’t given me. In fact, he kind of owes me a shot of light, what for me leaving my husband and all over him. I want to remind him that if he didn’t drop Skuld off in my life I wouldn’t be such a mess and that I’m not a firefly for him and Ava to trap in a jar. I want to shriek about the familiarity and see what deep, personal things he shoots back, after having observed me for so long. How deep will they cut, how thoroughly will they distract? But then, I remember all of my ideas involving Xigbar are usually dogshit. And usually I remember because Elrena is trashing him. Or legitimately any of the other Foretellers, while Lauriam just looks fucking exasperated and Emyd chews on his lips.

The divide between human and not has only grown in this world, and gets worse on days like today, days when the Master decides to go check out the progress of the ark on his own. Ludor is on one side of me, Elrena is on the other, using my lap as a footrest, her back pressed into Lauriam’s shoulder. Emyd, on Ludor’s other side, is doing an abysmal job of pretending not to nap, and while Vanitas is pointedly avoiding the rest of us, tucked into a bay window I think he’s the only one as frustratingly alert as me. Aced clears his throat roughly every five minutes, which wakes Emyd, but always causes Vanitas and I to both goran quietly, then exchange glances. Hi always returns to his notes. Mine sometimes does, and sometimes it goes to Xigbar, who is on the ceiling, notes sprawled out across it with him, thanks, I’m sure, to his affinity for shifting plans. 

Elrena’s elbow pokes into my ribs, I look up and she ever so subtly nods toward the group of Foretellers across the room, whose masks don’t conceal where their eyes lie. On me. Caught, they all quickly look away and come in tighter, but chat in low albeit conspicuous voices. I get the feeling that won’t be the last time their gaze is trained to me. I doubt it was the first. And I kind of wish Xigbar would just saddle up to his sibling to shut up whatever the fuck they’re on about, but when I search for his eyes, he denies meeting mine. Fuck me.

“Find anything good?” I ask the four, quickly losing patience. Vanitas’ eyes flick up to me. Next to me, Elrena starts to smirk.

“Pointedly, no.” Aced barks, causing Invi to recoil.

“What he means is we had a lot larger hopes for this research. Instead, it’s rather bleak, don’t you think?” Invi asks, in a much more honeysuckle voice that I trust, even less. I’m not stupid, I understand a metaphor.

And although Even is not an engaging writer, his notes as well as the Midgar ones have provided plenty. I know, because I’ve scribbled out about six different transmutation circles that one can use to bind life force to body. None of them have worked, but still.

“I think fuck you.” I tell Invi and her sugar smile disappears. Gula chokes a little, Aced climbs to his feet, Ira turns away. 

Xigbar relaxes a little more into the ceiling. I wish I had something more clever to say, something that would propel him the fuck down from there. Elrena tilts her head to the side, a lazy, catlike grin curling on her face.

“Please, you didn’t really think she couldn’t detect an insult, even a veiled one? No one likes Rueki, she’s used to that.” Elrena waves a hand. I huff a breath, shoulders tightening as I flash her a look like ‘dude, come on!’ But I think she thinks that was her having my back.

“It’s just pretty clear that none of you are fans is all.” I admit. “You don’t need to try to conceal that, you’re not fooling anyone, you don’t have to like me.”

“Not one of us has seen your abilities in action, don’t be so uncouth.” Gular orders me, and my eyes go wide, face tightening all the way back to my hairline. I’m not better than a lot of things, but I think I’m better than getting ordered around by a little boy. Superhuman or not. 

“We’re merely skeptical.” Ira agrees. Which would be plenty fucking fair if I was in a position to be accepting criticism, but alas, I’m not.

“I’m not.” Aced grumbles. “I think Luxu’s put stock in a childhood fairy tale and the Master is indulging his shortcomings. You were to be trained, you were to be capable, you’re nothing more than an ungrateful child, incapable of doing more than smooth talk and menial chores. You’re not able to travel by light, you’ve been defeated brutally every time you spar, you’ve barely indulged your alchemy in favor of magic, the easy way out. And when you do indulge it, you meet us with the single most worthless transmutation any of us have seen. Are you capable at all? I think Luxu got it wrong, I don’t think you’re anything.”

Xigbar’s off the ceiling now, I’m on my feet too. 

“Sit down, Rueki.” He orders me.

“Eat my ass.” I tell him. He doesn’t even make a snide remark. “I can show you, would you like that? To see what my alchemy can do? I don’t even need it to hold my own against you.” My attention is back on Aced, my eyes are slits.

“Rueki.” Ludor hisses from behind me. I brush out imaginary wrinkles from my skort, like that’s all he is, is dust. Like I can brush him off without a damn concern. “Rueki, this isn’t the first time he’s picked a fight with a human being and called it fair.”

“If the alchemist wants a fight, she can have one.” Aced growls, calling a massive, hulking Keyblade into his hand.

“Aced, this is no time for misbehaving, your lack of faith in the Master, and respectively, his hand picked alchemist, is distressing. Remember your place.” Ira demands suddenly sitting up ramrod straight.

“You are our leader no longer, Ira.” Aced growls, snapping around to regard his brother. “And she is not the Master’s hand pick, she’s Luxu’s.”

“And you think I made a mistake.” Xigbar drawls, crossing his arms to his chest. “That I got silly and distracted by a pretty little face, brother?” 

“I think you have been obsessed with the idea of this alchemist since you were a child, I think you indulged your folly the second you realized you could, she’s no more special than a brick wall.” Aced snarls. “We were promised a hero, this girl is a mouse.”

“You think that a millenia was indulging my folly the second I could?” Xigbar asks slowly, humming quietly for a moment. “You think it’s a mistake that Ava wants hands on her too? You think I chose wrong when she was the person who unlocked the realm and brought the Master back? Tell me Aced, what have you been busy doing all this time when I was preparing the universe for her?” And I notice the way Xigbar says that last part, like it was the universe that should bend for me and nothe the other way around. My face flushes.

“I think the sheer fact that Ava wants her is an indicator that she is too flighty to benefit us, she wants every tiny detail her way. She’s incapable of assimilating, incapable for the sort of willpower necessary for this task. I don’t need to tell you that this journey will not be for the faint of heart.” Aced insists and Xigbar rolls his visible eye, still playing, still taunting.

“Right, because you’ve never felt unrest. Never even once tried to upseat Ira.” Xigbar says, my eyes widen, I turn to Elrena and Ludor for confirmation but both are watching with rapt attention. Even Lauriam has his notes tucked aside, and he’s been twice as invested in research about bringing back the dead, as anyone. Vanitas is the only one who meets my gaze, and he does, with the nastiest little grin. “Get a clue, Aced. This has more to do with you not liking the Master putting you on the backburner. You don’t need two eyes to see the reoccuring theme here.” 

“You should learn your place, you the youngest of us, you have less experience and should--”

The space in the room completely shifts. We’re upside down and then we’re knocked flat on our asses as gravity settles back in. I’m gasping for breath, but I’m by far in the best shape, only reeling a bit, and that’s probably only because I’ve already managed to disorient myself with this same type of spell before. I climb to shaky legs, taking a step toward Xigbar.

“I could have held my own.” I murmur. There’s something dangerous and about to burst when his eye meets mine.

“Weren’t you told to sit down, Rueki?” He asks. My face burns.

“Fuck you.” I grunt. I tear away, legs still wobbling as I head for the door. “Fuck the research, you all want alchemy, come get me when there’s actually some to do.” 

Elrena extends me her hand, I take it, pulling her to her feet. She laces her fingers playfully through mine and cackles.

“Now this is a much better way to spend my time.” She announces as we head out the door. Ludor heaves a massive sigh and is right on our asses.

“I’m coming along.” He announces.

“Uh, me too then!” Emyd is out the door before even I am. Elrena casts Lauriam a look. He merely rolls his eyes.

“There’s something to be said about solidarity.” She insists.

“There’s even more to be said about bringing my sister back.” Lauriam reminds her.

“Alright, Van, you’re up.” I announce, because so much for being a neutal party, I’m rallying fucking everyone.

“Never call me that.” Vanitas says, but he does seem to be interested in this brand new rebellion, because he follows us out. Behind me, I hear Lauriam huff and say something derogatory, but inevitably, he does follow us out. Elrena cackles, taking the hand that was once in mine to toss an arm around my shoulder.

“You’re right, Lauri, she would’ve been fun to overthrow Xemnas with.” Elrena announces.

“That’s quite the understatement. You waited for quite some time when Roxas disappeared, outside the throne room to kill him, did you not?” Ludor asks.

“And that’s not to mention the time her and Saix got into it and destroyed the throne room floor.” Emyd nods.

“Or the time Saix threw a couch at her.” Ludor recalls. 

“Please, children. Remember when I gave my life to kill Saix?” I ask.

“Well wasn’t someone just a petty little monster?” Lauriam shakes his head, still seeming annoyed at us, but maybe a little less so at everyone save for Elrena. Guess she must be over him again, I can’t say it’s not a little screwed up, the way our interactions with our would be spares, seem to mirror each other. I should probably be used to weird coincidences by now.

“I became a real rebellious little bitch after Oblivion, we should’ve made friends sooner.” I nod.

“Oh, sweetie, we’re not friends now.” Elrena scoffs, though her arm is still thoroughly draped around me. “I think those high and mighty assholes do need to be reminded their place, though.”

“By a bunch of big, scary humans.” Vanitas rolls his eyes.

“Right, this is why we don’t invite you anywhere.” Elrena makes a face at him.

“I didn’t want to stick around for that, either. If the witch wasn’t going to fight Bear Douche, I was going to dip, anyway.” Vanitas waves his hand. “This is a fucking waste of time.

“It’s not, it’s just not very hands on for you guys. Technically I’m the only one doing alchemy, this is kind of a waste of time for the rest of you.” I offer.

“You know, I’m not really complaining about that.” Emyd admits.

“Nor am I, but I am curious as to when the other shoe will drop. Surely the Master has plotted twelve steps ahead of all of this and has decided for some reason or another, that all hands are needed on deck.” Ludor speculates. 

“This isn’t supposed to be torture.” Lauriam pipes up. “Our lives prior to this were, the Master is trying to mend that and this realm in tandem, you really think that we, the heroes of light, will not be rewarded for our efforts?”

“I think you still have as much faith in him as you did back when we were kids, and that’s embarrassing.” Elrena harps. Lauriam meets her with venom in his gaze, and not for the first time, I want to put myself between the very capable Elrena and danger. 

“I think your lack of faith is terribly pointed. I understand you feel awfully disillusioned without him, but--”

“Say another fucking word!” Elrena dares, tearing away from me, shoulders tight as she and Lauriam freeze in the middle of the hall, braced to combat each other. 

“Guys, guys!” Emyd protests, but makes no move to intercede. I steal a glance at Ludor and we both step in, me taking Elrena’s hands in mine, him moving Lauriam to the far side of the corridor with a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“We’re on the same side, remember?” Ludor asks.

“Right, the Foretellers are the assholes, and we can talk shit about them behind their backs and eat ice cream.” I assure Elrena. 

“If that’s what you’re content to do, for someone who defended you.” Lauriam grumbles, my face goes red.

“Look, I’ll deal with Xigbar when I deal with Xigbar, don’t pretend you know what’s going on there.” I snap.

“Seriously?” Elrena raises both eyes.

“That’s a love triangle from hell.” Emyd mutters. 

“There’s no love triangle, we just weren’t really talking until today, let me handle that on my own terms. You two were like buddies once though, right?” I wave a hand between Lauriam and Elrena.

“He’s only good for eating pussy, every other time he opens his mouth, trash comes out.” Elrena snaps.

“And who put an end to that extent of our relationship?” Lauriam retorts. 

“Sorry, I’m not sharing a bed with someone who wants to kiss the Master of Master’s ass.” Elrena huffs.

“We both know that’s not the reason, Elrena. Do try to be honest with me, even if you won’t be honest with anyone else here.” Lauriam taunts. Elrena screams, I squeeze her hand and a fire burns in her eyes.

“Come on, please?” I beg. “Can we just have ice cream? We don’t need to dog the Master of Master’s, we don’t need to shit on the Foretellers. You guys can tell me more about the past! We can talk shit about Xemnas! We all hated Xemnas! I’m okay just agreeing that Aced is a douche and getting over this.”

“I am as well, he does not learn.” Ludor nods. “Rueki is right, we have far better things to devote energy to than fighting each other. It was pleasant to spend the previous evenings together, was it not?”

“It was.” Lauriam concedes, eyes flashing to Elrena’s.

“I’m not apologizing.” She purses her lips.

“I’ve no intention to either.” Lauriam counters.

“So we’ll make sure to sit in between you guys.” Emyd offers. 

Suddenly, abruptly, Vanitas barks out a laugh so wild, we all freeze, eyes going huge before our heads snap in his direction.

“Is this what’s passing for companionship nowadays?” He chokes.

He’s met with a resounding chorus of ‘shut the fuck up’.

\--

When I open my door, there’s a black mass sprawled across my bed. Fortunately, it’s an easily distinguishable one, thanks to the single golden eye looking me over. Unfortunately I’m actually not sure how to proceed. Where to move, what to do, what to think.

Living boldly is a lot easier to do without Xigbar filling my thoughts.

“You really should listen to Ludor.” Xigbar hums, gaze still trained to my ceiling as I shut the door behind me, still standing with my hands against it. “I’d tell you to listen to me, and not to pick fights with Aced, but we both know you don’t listen to me.”

“What am I supposed to listen to? You telling me to sit down or two weeks of silence?” I pull my hair out of the sloppy bun and make my way to my dresser to set my hair tie atop it. My hands slip through my hair, fluffing it in the mirror. Xigbar’s reflection stares at me. 

“You wanna give me the secret ingredient then, little Rueki? You wanna tell me how I’m gonna get you to nestle up all cozy beside me? Cuz I’m all ears.” He says, and my throat goes quite dry. My teeth find my lower lip, my shoulders get a little tighter. “First, you’re pouring your soul out to me, then you’re shutting me down, and I’m expected not to get whiplash after that? Why would I want to be around that?”

“Um, maybe fuck you, give me a little slack, you straight up threw Skuld into my life and she ruined it, or maybe you could just cut me slack cuz you kept the fact I have a soulmate a secret from me for like ever?” I roll my eyes.

“Hell, Rueki. First you want honesty, now you don’t, now you do again.” He grumbles.

“You can’t just say nice shit about me, and then take it out on me cuz I don’t fuck you at the end of the night.” I throw my hands up.

“I didn’t take a thin out on you, kiddo, I didn’t shoot you up with light, so now you wanna throw a tantrum.” He reminds me.

“Dude, tantrums are my middle name, I may be all those sweet things you said about me, but also, I’m an indecisive, stubborn, cunt. I’m not fun to be around, what the hell were you doing, romanticizing me so hard that you missed all of that?” I ask, half teasing, but where Lea gets pissy, Xigbar just closes right back up. I sigh. Apparently, it’s my job to pry him back open. “If we would have stayed out any later, I probably would have done something I regret.”

His visible eye lights up.

“Specifically…” He presses.

“You know what.” I groan. “And I know I’m the one who walked out on Lea, and I know you doing this unrequited stuff isn’t fair to you, but if you’re doing what you want anyway then… I’m not that person. I’m not fucking around on someone I love, I’m a lot of shitty things, but I really, really could not do that as long as there’s still a snowflake’s shot in hell of him still wanting me.” I turn around, propping my elbows on the dresser behind me as I look at him, all cards out on the table. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it, but it’s not fucking fair to any of us, me fooling aroun with you, when I’m in love with someone else. And someone that loves me, at that.” Because there’s no nice way to tell Xigbar that he’s my second choice, that if Lea threw me aside, I’d be in his bed in minutes. Second best isn’t fair to anyone. 

He climbs up out of my bed, dusting his coat off and I whine.

“Come on, don’t.” I beg him.

“Give a guy a second, okay, little Rueki? You’re right, the unrequited shit is hard.” He shakes his head.

“Okay.” I mutter. I don’t get to have my cake and eat it too, I guess. “What’d you come here for?”

“To tell you I’m not trying to be a dick.” He says, and abruptly, we both laugh, soft, humorless sounds. “Like it matters.”

“I mean, I’m not either. But you’re right.” It doesn’t matter what I mean, it’s how he perceives it. He takes a few massive, almost predatory steps toward me and sets his hands down on the dresser behind me, effectively pinning me to the furniture. 

“You’ve thought about it though, that’s not bad.” But he says it like he hasn’t given up hope, he’s just suffering through this going at a snail’s pace. I offer him a very weak smile. “I’m not giving you light yet, because we’re starting a little experiment with Vanitas.”

“What?” My brow comes together. 

“Well the kid’s made of pure darkness. Even now, when he’s not Xehanort and has a fresh new body, all his own, he comes back and the blackness in his heart eats away the light in a few days' time. So Gula’s been giving him regular shots of light magic, to see if one, it actually makes a difference, and two, what the side effects look like. You’re off limits to trial runs and bad days. Everyone but Aced seems to know that.” And it kind of makes my stomach backflip when he implies the only reason the others have even feigned politeness with me, is on his behalf. I didn’t even have to fuck my way to the top to get the perks. “Gula’s been doing it since you came back from Shibuya, that’ll be two weeks tomorrow, so if things keep looking alright, Vanitas’ heart doesn’t explode or anything…”

“You’ll give me light.” I gasp.

“And in the meantime, you’ve got a mission tomorrow, and I’ve got an easy in for you, little Rueki.”

\--

The Kingdom of Corona is beautiful. The late spring sun beams against my skin, my scars shimmer in the sunlight as I take in the smell of ocean air and fresh flowers and fruits, coming up from a beach at the edge of the woods. Banners line the streets, so do flowers, I recall Kairi mentioning that this place was supposed to have a festival months ago. I wonder if there’s ever a time it isn’t having one. I could get used to a place like this. I could get used to the little tricks Xigbar whispered in my ear last night, the barely hidden path to a throne room, the perfect timing to get Queen Rapunzel alone, courtesy of the Master of Master’s, my life and my mission are so much easier when everything isn’t resting on my shoulders alone.

‘Under a trap door at the edge of town is a path that will lead you straight to the throne room, royalty uses it to escape I think, anyhoe, Lauriam remembers it from the recon he did in Corona, the man’s damn thorough. That’s the best chance you’ll have of catching the queen alone and it just so happens to be where the world’s Keyhole is.’ Xigbar told me, the two of us laying next to each other in my bed, him on his back, staring up at the ceiling, me on my stomach, enabling him in the worst of ways, last night. Because around him, I feel traces of that endlessness, traces of those clouds, a glimmer of that high I’m so badly chasing.

Feet firmly planted on the ground in Corona, my eyes are zeroed in, I’m a hawk, cutting through trees, up a bridge, through a little alley. There’s a trapdoor below my feet. I snicker, shaking my head as I brush it off and crawl through it. Xigbar’s good for his word, so is Lauriam. 

I hit the end of the tunnel and feel around for another trap door. It’s easy enough to find, and with every ounce of upper body strength I have to muster, I push it open and pull myself out of it. True to Xigbar’s words, I’m standing in a corridor, a tiny, microscopic hall, and once I push through a tiny, creaking door, a bright, sunny, throne room is revealed. Lauriam’s right, this is definitely made for the royal family, in the event for need of an escape.

Thanks to the lack of effort, I have stamina to take in the beauty of this room, which is decorated in golds and vibrant colors that remind me a little too much of the sun. There’s even one etched in the floor of the room, a clear indicator to someone like me, someone in the know, where the Keyhole is. I’m so close, I think. I’m almost home, almost back to Lea. I inhale deeply and hear some shifting on the far end of the room. I bite down a giddy smile.

“Queen Rapunzel?” I ask, in a voice like honey. A woman peers around the corner, with wide green eyes, an elegant violet dress and short brown hair. She fidgets with a beaming golden crown in her hands. Sora’s memories tell me that I’ve found the woman I need.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” There’s a faint note of suspicion to her tone, but mostly, she just sounds curious. If I’m being honest with myself, she looks like an easy target, all wide eyed naivety. Still, I resolve not to underestimate her. I just need to do what I’ve done for every other Princess in the realm. I’m relieving them of a responsibility, of a burden Kairi has told me a thousand times, no one wants.

Even if I still want it.

“My name’s Rueki. I’m sure you must be quite busy with your festival. But I wasn’t sure when else I’d be able to talk to you alone. I have a proposition for you. I didn’t want anyone to convince you that they knew better than you.” I tell her, stepping into the beaming gold in the room. Her eyes narrow a little as she looks over me. Maybe I should have more proper looking clothes for this sort of task, I muse. Something that makes me look less like a ruffian. Surely my haul in Shibuya will have something, since I haven’t gotten around to returning any of it.

But I’ll have to make due with how I look now, with how she’s looking at me, like she has no idea what to make of me. 

I have a system that works, I remind myself. I go over with her how I’m a protector of the light, how she knows my friends Sora and Kairi. Their names light up her eyes a little, but the rest of my words don’t change the way she sees me. So I explain to her that someone, somewhere along the line of princesses, gifted her some magic light that makes her numb and unable to appreciate the nuances of the world around her. It is a massive burden and would best be granted back to the world itself. Because the world will know what to do with it. It’s too big a chore for one person to hold onto, and doesn’t she want to feel all of her feelings properly, does she really want to be deprived of the truest parts of all she is?

She’s still not budging, so I tell her the lovely tale of what the realm of light looked like, before darkness seeped in. I relay to her breezy, blissful way life could flow, not just for her kingdom but for the rest of the realm if she just returns this gift to where it originated. She could be the difference, I’m so close to saving the realm, and she gets to be the turning point! How lucky for her!

But she doesn’t look lucky. She wrings her hands on her crown, biting her lips, so shy and insecure looking. Finally, she stands a little taller, rights herself and looks a little more regal, but not by much.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do that. If this light is a gift and I’m meant to protect it, I’m going to protect it as best as I can. If the world takes it back from me, it can have it. But I’m used to people wanting things from me. Don’t worry, it’s safe in my hands.” She assures me. Like that’s enough, like that will ebb my problems. Like that’s the solution I’m looking for. 

Someone has not told this girl how this all works.

“Do you not understand what I’m saying? You keeping this light is preventing your world from being safe.” I remind her, stepping closer. She steps back and I blink, confusion spreading across my face. This is not how this part goes, I think. This is the easy part, this is where my insight makes a difference, this is where my instinct to protect wins out over the fact that I’m not a smooth talker. Why is she looking at me like I’m a monster, like I’m something to fear? 

Maybe this girl doesn’t know what fear could actually look like.

“And I’m sure you understand when I say, that if someone bestowed this light upon me, they must have had a reason for it. That means it’s my job to keep it safe. I believe in my kingdom, we will find another way to keep it safe.” Rapunzel tells me, clutching her crown a little tighter. My face gets hot, so hot I think I could melt her with the expression that settles into it.

“So you’re content knowing that your world is going to fall to the darkness?” I snap, slamming a hand on the wall. I regret it, instantly, of course. It was a reflex, I should tell her, I didn’t mean to, I should promise. But the look in her transparent eyes says worlds more than I could try to predict. 

There’s nothing I can say that will sway her. This girl made up her mind the second I stumbled into this room, with only the best intentions in my hand. And now, because of her, I see a new reality spitting into my vision. A reality where I fail, where there’s no coming home to Lea, where there’s no happy ending where we throw our arms around each other and rejoice in this fresh light. There’s no changing the state of this realm, there’s no fulfilling my role, there’s no saving myself.

This, I want to scream at her and point to my face, is what fear looks like.

“You said you wanted me here alone because you didn’t want anyone to change my opinion. And I’m thankful that you trust I know my own heart best. This light is mine to protect, I’m afraid that’s not up for debate. Now please, go have fun at the festival. You shouldn’t be here.” 

No. I decide. No way, absolutely not. I look at this woman, with her choppy brown hair and her too huge green eyes and the crown she clutches in her greedy hands and I think steam could come off of me.

Fuck her. Fuck what she thinks she owns, fuck this petty little bitch who’s going to convince herself that she’s capable of being my road block. This tiny little fucking woman. My eyes could scorch. Live boldly, Rueki.

“I’m sorry, I phrased that wrong.” I murmur, taking one very long, very purposeful step forward. Her eyes fly impossibly wider and she staggers back, looking around, maybe for help, maybe for something to deter me with. But we’re not doing that. I pound a foot into the ground and she yelps as we watch lightning form a border around us, a ring criss crossed so tight that neither of us are making it out until I make the call, until I wave my hands. Until I happen. “You don’t deserve this light any more than anyone else does.”

“Someone thought I did! Something thought I was special and worth it!” Rapnuzel snaps at me, so I caw out this high, haughty laugh.

“You know, Princesses of Heart are flawed too. They make mistakes too.” I snark. “And yours, sweetness, was thinking that I’m not going to put that light back where it belongs. This is the last time I ask nicely.” I demand, teeth gnashing together, eyes transfixed on the way she’s still squirming around, still looking for any way out she can find. Fat fucking chance.

“It might not belong with me, but it sure does not belong to you!” She snaps, finally settling on throwing her crown at me. It’s a really quick dodge. Embarrassingly easy, I actually laugh. Cares are tossed to the wind. “Stay away from me!” I’m not sure if it’s a demand or a plea, but neither of those things could matter.

“Which is why I’m not taking it for myself. You’re ignorant, you’re selfish, you’re a petty little girl with a pretty little crown.” I say, kicking the thing to the lightning, which evaporates it instantly. She gasps, clapping her hands to her mouth. “But don’t worry. That thing that makes you special, that thing you’re so worried about losing because you are so poignantly not? I’m actually going to put it to a good cause.” I call Backbiter to my hand. She starts screaming. I stomp into the ground, calling out a water spell. It holds her in place, tendrils shooting out of the ground. She shrieks and thrashes, but it doesn’t do any damage to my magic or even her body. I hold out my blade, I narrow my eyes and aim it right at her heart. Light floods out, so fast, I barely have time to cap it off and seal her individual light in her heart. I don’t want to cap it off either, I want to take it, I want to drink it up, I deserve it. Me and my black, broken, bleeding heart.

But I can show discipline. I can show mercy. My face settles into something softer, something that oozes the sweet, sweet pride I feel. 

“Well, I’d say it’s been fun, but that’s a fucking lie.” I say, releasing the water spell, letting her go.

“Guards, guards!” She cries. 

“Better bring in the big ones. You’re gonna need them for me.” I tell her, smugness dripping off of my voice. I aim my Keyblade at the sun in the ground, opening up that Keyhole so nicely for myself. As I leap in, I call off my thunder spell. And truly, I do hope she brings me a challenge, because I throb with adrenaline and excitement as I tear through the heart’s chamber, mind moving faster than my body can keep up with. The spheres get placed, the light gets sealed, I pop back out of the heart to see the queen and a whole ass hoard of guards surrounding me. I bite back a smile. “Damn. Didn’t you get the message? You’re gonna need better than this.”

One by one, they fall to me, to my blade, to my magic, to my alchemy. There’s nothing stopping me, not a power in this realm can hold me back, or hold me down. Because I knock out this wave and let another chase me straight through the Kingdom. Like they could ever catch up, like they could ever find me.


	38. Chapter 38

XXXVII.

My heart is hammering in ways I should be protesting, my temples throb with the most repulsive sort of adrenaline. I should be feeling hella guilty now. Embarrassed, maybe? I should definitely consider the woman that screamed at me to stop and at least reevaluate my own morality but--

But fuck her. Fuck the queen and the way she was hoarding the light. Fuck her and everyone who can’t suffer a goddamn minute for the greater good. I did my damn job, it’s not my fault that she was selfish, it’s not my fault that someone fucked her up before I came around. I can’t be responsible for everyone’s fucking trauma, I’m barely even responsible for mine and I--

I closed off five worlds. I set a hand on my heart as it still trembles, but this time in a way that’s half giddy. Five worlds, not damn bad. If no one’s gonna praise me, I’m not going to punish myself, wasn’t I taught long ago to stomach some dirt under my nails? Haven’t I let others pay higher costs than this?

“--just wanted to get away with you for a little.”

“Yeah, I was thinking we should do the same thing.”

My poor heart has gone straight from sprinting to stopping, my eyes fly wide, I duck quickly into a cove, pressing my hips tightly to the wall. There’s no room to move, there’s barely space to breathe, but there’s no way either of them will be coming this way and not see me if I don’t take cover. It doesn’t matter what sort of high I was on, there’s not a bone in my body that could possibly be ready to face Lea and Skuld.

Lea and Skuld, together, getting away from something. I bite my lips, it’d be dumb to pretend I’m not curious, but wouldn’t it be painfully masochistic to linger? I can still teleport. I can be smart about this. I can preserve what’s left of my own crumbling self esteem and ride out how successful I finally get to feel.

“You seem to be doing better.” Skuld says. Lea clears his throat, I hear the nervous rustle of fabric, I can visualize him wiping his palms or adjusting his coat. Maybe his scarf. Our scarf. Part of me want to duck my head out to see if I can spy them, but I’m really not willing to risk that if I do stay here.

“I haven’t heard from her in a month, it’s not like I can quit living.” Lea murmurs and my heart stills. 

Yeah, I’m not teleporting away from this. 

“That’s really grown of you.” Skuld says. “She’s made her choices, you shouldn’t punish yourself for them.”

“Come on Skuld, I dunno that I really want to talk about her.” Lea admits, I want to scream. I don’t care if he wants to talk about me, I want to hear, I want to know what he’s feeling, how he’s doing. I want to hear him say he misses me and would switch sides if it meant having me back or that what I’m doing isn’t so bad and that he’d at least let me indulge myself.

I want to hear him say he forgives me.

“No, I agree, I had something else I wanted to talk about too.” Skuld admits. There’s more rustling, the sound of some sort of trumpet begins, cheers erupt from town and I narrow my eyes, trying to shake everything off. If these people could kindly shut the fuck up, I could get back to eavsedropping on him, on Lea, my Lea, who surely has to be feeling the way our souls miss each other. The way others could be tempting but don’t even compare. The way that nothing can fill the other like we can. Say something, I think. Give me a reason and I’ll burst out now! I look at my hips and where I’m wedged into the wall. Well, I’ll at least try to burst out.

“Yeah.” Lea chuckles, at something Skuld said sometime when the trumpets were roaring. “I kind of noticed.”

“I know, and you have no idea how hard it was not to mention anything. I felt wrong...feeling that way. Like how would this affect you guys.” Skuld says and my muscles go tight, my eyes narrow further, my ears perk up. Her dogging me I kind of expected, but what is this, what was she worried about? What could make Miss Moral feel like she’s actually in the wrong?

“Clearly that’s not a problem anymore.” Lea says, tone still playful. What’s not a problem anymore, I want to scream. “If I’m being real with you, I can’t say I didn’t expect this.”

“You felt it too?” She asks.

“Of course. It seems like it’s been a long time coming. It feels right.”

Oh. Oh no. Oh, please, say something to prove I’m mishearing a conversation that I walked in with the wrong context to. Please, one of them needs to say something to quell the way my hands are going cold and tingly and my heartbeat is starting to pick up in double time. How is it possible to be this warm and have bones that are chilling? 

The trumpets roar again and I shove my fist into my mouth to stifle a scream that no one would hear anyway. I just need something, a quick release for my anxiety, I’m being too impulsive, reacting to something I don’t know the context of, that’s all.

This is my soulmate, surely I would have felt if--

“--want us to be together.” Skuld says, tenderly, sweetly, in a tone that twinkles.

“Definitely. If I’m being honest, it’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. It’s what I want.”

My stomach drops out of my body, my lips grow heavy and numb, the world spins in a slow motion haze, throbbing from my peripheral to the center of my pupil. 

No, Lea, please. Please, no. 

Don’t prove me right, don’t walk away, don’t convince yourself I pushed you here, I’m right here. I’m close enough to touch and in an entirely different galaxy, skidding and melting away from him, hurdling away, unable to reach out and close my hands around his fading form. 

Please!

There’s more rustling, and it’s not them kissing, I tell myself, it’s not him reaching out to hold her, it’s not her reaching out to touch him. Even though she’s beautiful, even though she’s powerful, even though she’s righteous. Even though they’ve been friends since they were kids and she’s probably never left his mind and this is that natural progression of things they were talking about. He loves me, he’s my soulmate, I love him, we’ve been apart longer than this, we’ve fought harder than this, he’s not moving on! 

“You’re sure?” Skuld asks in a breathy little voice. I feel wetness staining my cheeks.

“Seriously.” Lea repeats. “It’s been a long time coming.”

I teleport out as fast as I can, and don’t even register the nausea.

I thought I had lived a thousand nightmares before this. My body bears the scars of wars past, I have watched my friends, my loved ones die. Everything I’ve ever known about myself has been turned around on its head. I have looked someone I now call friend, in the eyes and watched them die. And none of that compares to this. I know what a panic attack feels like, but when the edges of my vision start to go white, I sink down onto the edge of the water, my head between my knees. Tears spill, hot and heavy down into the sand at the edge of the beach. I think I might hyperventilate or potentially pass out. One clear thought comes to mind, one high, delirious hope. Another thing I should feel guilty about.

But no, no I shouldn’t. He told me I could have it, that today would be the day. I just want to go home, I decide.

I just want to see him.

“Xigbar!” This time, he brings me right home, I stumble through his portal, the light of his magic barely touching me as I tumble into his chest, bringing the both of us straight to the ground.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what happened to you? Someone shit in your cereal?” He snarks, hoping, I’m sure, that this will be like last time and all he’ll have to do is pick up the pieces, that someone else will have started to mend me. My body trembles as my eyes flick up to him. He registers very quickly that this is not like the last time. Not at all.

“He chose her.” I don’t need to say another word. He crouches down onto his haunches, head tilted to the side. I believe the sympathy on his face entirely, because it is so half assed.

“Damn. That is shit luck.” Is his condolence. Should I have expected any less?

“I can’t…I can’t breathe, I can’t think…” I choke out.

“Yeah, looks like you’re having a panic attack. And a pretty brutal one at that.” He swipes a hand through my hair.

“Yeah, I’m fucking aware!” I snap. He makes a face at me.

“Well what do you want me to do about it?” Hold my hand and remind me that I’m safe here? Try to center me? Give me some bullshit promise that it’s all going to be okay? No, that was what Lea did. Lea who has fully turned his back on me, Lea who I ran miles from and will probably say I was the one who walked away to anyone willing to listen. And for what?

For a happy ending, I remind myself. I’m doing this so that I can heal. That’s what I need. That’s the only thing I need.

“I want light, like you promised me.” I remind him. “Please, I just wanna be okay so bad!”

He purses his lips as he looks at me.

“You sure you want that right now?” He asks.

“Stop beating around the bush, you can feel my heart, you know the fucking answer to that!” I snap.

“Shit, you act more and more like Elrena every day.” He mutters.

“Xigbar!” I grab the front of his coat, yanking him in dangerously close. 

“I already told you how addicting light magic is, and Gula hasn’t even done his test of Vanitas today, maybe let’s ride this out until the Master’s sure it’s safe.” He suggests

Callously, I take his face into my hand, I press my forehead to his. He smashes a hand down on the wall beside my head, steadying himself, registering my hungry eyes, my utter willingness.

“This is our heart.” I don’t feel guilty, I don’t. “I’m not asking the Master’s opinion, he’s not the one who knows me. I’m asking you to do this for me, because I need this.”

He’s still for a very long minute and we’re drinking in each other’s exhale, I’m very aware of the proximity and I don’t feel bad, I don’t feel guilty, I just feel needy. 

“You drive a fucking hard bargain.” He chokes, voice low and gravely. “This is probably gonna fuck you up, don’t get weird on me here, alright?” He asks. I struggle for breath to ask what he means by that. He sets his index and middle finger of each hand against my temples and the most delicious sensation lights up my entire being.

Air floods my lungs and is simultaneously taken from them. My body convulses, yet finally stills. Everything is so much and not enough, but this feels like a Hero Drink on steroids. I’m unstoppable, I’m beautiful, I’m powerful, I’m alive, for the first time in my life, I feel brighter than every single star in the sky. And it’s not just in my body, it’s my mind. Every ounce of pain dissolves as light pierces through. I’m not repressing anything, I’m not forgetting anything. In fact, for the first time all of the hurt in my life is illuminated, and promptly shredded away from me. My arms go limp, my body tingles, there’s a hot coil tightening deep inside of me and when it finally releases, I fall forward, straight into Xigbar’s arms. He catches me, easily, expecting this.

When the real world finally floods my vision, I realize my face is flushed, my legs tremble, every ounce of my skin feels over sensitive, I’m struggling to catch my breath. I think I just had an orgasm.

“Did I just—”

“Yeah, that can happen. Especially your first time with that much.” His tone is painfully nonchalant, but the timbre of his voice is low and husky and lights prickles up on my skin. My face burns, I can’t hide the way I’m panting. He grins at me like a wolf, and suddenly, I feel so exposed. He touched my temples, not my clit, and even if he did, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with me liking this? What’s wrong with me wanting another hit. I see gold eyes and black hair, but they don’t belong to him and they’re beneath my husband and--

I need more.

“How?” I ask.

“You know, I really don’t know. It’s just a thing it does. Light gets rid of all of the pain, you can’t hurt, it pushes you into a state of mental bliss so extreme, so, I guess, why not your body too? That was really fun discovering when I was just a teenager.” Xigbar chuckles, ruffling my hair. My face goes red. This should be the single most embarrassing experience of my life. I should be pushing him off of me. 

He fucked my--

Fuck it. I don’t care.

I’m flushed from head to toe, and he flicks his thumb across my cheekbone. There’s no light coming out of him this time, just the brush of leather against skin, a feeling I have grown to love far too much. My throat tightens.

“I need more.” I breathe. He chuckles, nudging my nose with his. 

“Come on, you know better than that. I’m not just gonna become your light dealer” He tells me. At first, defeat washes over me, but with breathtaking quickness, I decide something else. Light is good, light is what I want. But there’s something else I want too, something that I’ve been denying, something that would feel so right, so effortless. 

I don’t need light, I know how to feel weightless and free.

I look him straight in the eye as I take the tip of the index finger of his glove between my teeth and pull it slowly off. His eye widens as I toss aside his glove and bring my lips back to his finger tip. Carefully, I drag my lips down his finger, tongue flicking to brush the underside. My lips find his knuckle and I suck, ever so slightly as I draw back upward, tongue circling his fingertip before I draw away.

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow. Both of our eyes flick down to where his finger is now stained with the flecks from my liquid lip, and even I think that’s at least a little bit hot. I release my grip on him, and instantly his ungloved hand grips my chin.

“Stop talking, let’s find a better place for that mouth.” I urge as he tilts my head upward. His forehead dips in, dangerously close, resting against mine. I feel him breathe, I swear, I can feel the reverberations of the brush of his lips as he speaks.

“I’m not gonna be your Light dealer.” He repeats. But at this point, I’ll settle for a close second.

“Then don’t give me light. Give me you.” I breathe. He smashes his mouth into mine, in a kiss that takes my breath away. I try to pull back, desperately seeking space to ease into this, but am only met by the wall. His teeth are sharp as they find my lower lip, and he wastes no time, yanking my mouth open and shoving his tongue inside.

The warmth, the wetness of his tongue as it slides along mine, across the inside of my cheek, the roof of my mouth, as though he is trying to claim every single space of me, is so overwhelming. But I am living for the sensation of him filling my mouth.

His lips demand everything of mine, he is brutal, but fuck, can he kiss. When he pulls away from me, I am already quivering, panting like I was right after light overtook me.

“Xig—”

“Luxu.” He corrects. “If you’re gonna scream a name, make sure it’s Luxu, okay?” His hand curls around my neck, his thumb brushing ever so gently against the hollow of my throat. I draw in a shaky breath and make a move to nod. “And sweetheart, I know you’re a screamer.”

Yeah, I definitely like him better when he shuts his fucking mouth.

I grab his hair in fistfuls, and slam my mouth against his just in time to be met by the familiar jolt of teleportation.

My back smacks into something soft but before I can adjust to anything, I’m met by his weight coming down on top of me. My lips part in a gasp, and I shouldn’t be surprised by the way Luxu takes this as an invitation. His tongue fills my mouth and my brain short circuits, palms tingling as they press into the bed below me.

His hands waste no time, devious and demanding, like I’ll change my mind at any moment if I give him a chance to stop devouring me alive. Willing my shocked body to move, I twine my hands through the silkiness of his hair, smashing his face into mine until our kiss becomes a symphony of clicking teeth and broken moans. 

He reaches around my waist, I think to grope my ass, but instead he yanks down the zipper of my skort and tugs at the hem of the fabric, a cue that I can’t even keep up with. Because now he’s tugging on the zipper of his own coat, hands skillfully wedged between the flush of our bodies. I whine into his mouth, shaking my head. One hand comes up to weave into my hair, like he thinks I’m whimpering for closeness.

Or maybe to stop me from stopping him.

I take his face into my hands and with effort that shakes my shoulders, I manage to push him away, our faces flushed, my chest heaving, his arms taut on either side of me. Immediately, I’m distracted by the thick scars that present themselves in his halfway open coat. What was I protesting again?

My hand reaches out, tender and featherlight to brush a particularly knotted one below his collarbone.

“We can compare and contrast all night if you want, hun.” He tells me and my eyes widen. He sounds strained, as though the prospect of taking this at a snail’s pace might be painful for him. And I realize it damn well might be, he has been taking this at a snail’s pace. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” I assure him, still mesmerized by a body as tattered as mine. I pull the zipper of his coat as far down as my hands can reach and then push it off his shoulders. He helps it the rest of the way down and I actually have to suck in a breath. 

He’s fucking delicious. It’s not like I didn’t expect Luxu or Xigbar or fucking whoever I’m calling him now, to be cut as hell. But the shape of his body is downright intoxicating, equal parts lean and strong. The lifetimes of war painted across his skin are what do it for me though. This is what brings me home.

Oh damn, it really is so easy.

“Oh, and don’t call me hun.” I shake my head. He chuckles and I think I like the way the remnants of his breath tickle my skin.

“So what’s the deal then, love, you gonna make me beg for it?” He asks and the very thought sends chills across my skin, chills I know poke at him. I bite my lip and shake my head.

“Ludor calls me love.” I say and he huffs, tossing his head back to shake it.

“Babe, doll, angel, sweetness.” He tries and I giggle, something soft and sweet and untainted. I twine my arms around his neck.

“Try harder.” I tease. He chuckles, seeming to catch the drift of how I want things to go, as he dips in to suck at the pulse point on my neck. A cry punctures the air, my nails bite into his bare back and he groans against my skin.

“Well give me a clue then, what was the problem?” He asks, mouth brushing my now slick and sensitive neck. I suck in a breath, pinching my eyes shut. I came, I remind myself. Of course everything feels hypersensitive, I’m still riding the aftershocks of having an orgasm without so much as being touched.

“I just don’t want this to happen so quick.” I say and he goes rigid in my arms. “No, like I want to fuck you, I just don’t want it to be over.” I insist. “I don’t just want a quickie.”

“Been a little too much built up for that.” He admits and I think, that’s for fucking sure. “But who do you think I am?”

“Some asshole who’s been thirsting after me for years.” I roll my eyes. He snorts, biting down on my shoulder hard enough for me to cry out. 

“I’m not bound by human nonsense. I promise you’ve I’ve got the stamina to fuck you through the night.” He husks and I feel every syllable, reverberating into my bones.

“I--uh…” Think, Rueki, be coherent. You’ve fucked people before, this man shouldn’t be so capable of sending my brain into overdrive, turning me into one mass of nerve endings before even getting me out of my clothes. And yet, I’m hella thankful that he is. “I’ve got the birth control thing on lock, but I don’t have anything to protect--” 

“I can’t get sick, babydoll.” He breathes. I take a shaky breath and laugh.

“You really suck at nicknames.” I bite my lips.

“Yeah, I’m fucking sick of you talking.” And he smashes his mouth back down onto mine, me smiling impossibly wide, feeling giddy and stupid and somehow lighter. What ailed me again? I can’t remember, can’t remember what it felt like to hurt, wrapped in the mania of his touch. The only thing I can process is how to shimmy out of my skort, and kick off my panties with it.

The sound of something metallic--a belt maybe?-- clangs on the ground and Luxu kicks off his pants, palms pressing into my shoulders, urging me further back onto the bed. And I oblige, breaking the kiss that’s got me twice as dizzy as an anti gravity spell I’ve ever cast. The man is the epitome of his own element, I don’t even particularly care that I feel foolish when he pounces on me and I cackle like a hyena before kissing down his shoulders and yanking his hair free. I don’t particularly care about anything other than this man like a powder keg, pressing his erection to my thigh, begging me to burst. I quickly draw my legs up and around his waist, pressing him down impossibly close. He’s completely naked and my heart sputters, feeling him brush my slicked core. 

“Oh!” I choke which he stifles with his mouth. I can’t even try to repress a shiver, so instead, as gracefully as I can with him teasing my clit with the head of his cock, I unzip my shoes and toss them so far across the room, they can’t cross my mind. “Xig… Luxu.” I whine. He moans, humming from where he hovers above me. 

“How rough can I get with you?” He asks and my heart might just have stopped working. This man hasn’t even started in on me and yet he’s contemplating ways to break me? Not for the first time since stepping into the realm of superhumans, I wonder if I’m in over my head. “You want it sweet? I can do gentle.” But there’s an obvious displeasure as he says that, and I am more than ready. There was just a part of me that expected him to be the take his time type, with how he’s fixated on me for as long as he has.

But when has anything about this unpredictable man ever been what I expected. When has he ever been shy of what I needed, even if not what I wanted?

“No, no.” I shake my head, twining my arms around his neck. “You don’t need to be gentle this time.”

This time. We’re twined, as if by a wire, the both of us shuddering as it travels from his body to mine. A smirk curls at his lips, like the edges of paper being burned, and there’s a swell of pride as I understand I am the one that did that to him. Me. 

“Well, get this off first.” He demands, pushing the hem of my shirt up with one hand. “I didn’t put you in my bed to not watch your tits bounce when I fuck you.” 

A growl bubbles up from my throat, I throw the shirt to the ground, he lines himself up, I don’t even properly right my position on the bed before I feel him fill me, pushing through slowly, and then all at once. His entire cock slams in, hard and deep and riveting. My eyes fly wide, a strangled cry leaves my lips. His eye flashes, but I manage a shaky nod, so he pulls out of me and rams right back in. Every thrust is harsh and impossible, draining the breath straight from my lungs the second it refills them. I can’t even match his pace, can’t do anything but let him jackhammer into me, at this demanding speed that crosses my eyes and dots my vision.

His hands find my wrist and little prickles light my skin, bright and consuming and--

“Oh!” I yelp. Light magic, that clever bastard. “Goddamn.”

“Fuck, you look good like this.” He groans, not missing a beat, hips smashing into my thighs with a force that will undoubtedly leave a plethora of bruises, like paint across my skin in the morning, but right now between the way he fucks me breathless and shoots those sweet, bright little tingles into my blood, I can’t even bother to pretend to be upset. “Knew you were made to take my dick.” He’s babbling, but I hardly mind. Thanks to the light, the world’s slowed down, or maybe I’ve sped up, but I can process the way he fills me, the lusty, slick sounds as he hammers into my pussy. I am consciously aware of all of the nerve endings being brushed inside of me and the way he’s touching parts of me that I didn’t realize existed. The veins on his cock twitch inside of me, he curls a finger between us, against my clit and I scream.

No, no, no, I want to stop my body, but I can’t. Another orgasm washes through me like I’ve been overstimulated for hours and just can’t hang on, despite having been touched for only minutes. 

“Omigod, omigod, omigod!” I choke, trying to see clearly, trying to bring myself down one rung at a time. But he hasn’t stopped hammering into me and his hand hasn’t left my clit, I think I’m going to explode. 

“I told you to call me Luxu.” He teases and now I’m going to burst in a totally different way. This insufferable fuck, just made me come. 

His fingers start to speed up, moving mechanically, brutally swift and featherlight against my overstimulated clit, until I’m whining, a mess of sweat, pleading his name at top volume. He slips a finger inside of me, stretching me, working me in tandem with his cock and it’s almost too much to handle. I’m struggling for breath again, I need light and my heart must shriek this, because there’s a sudden pulsation in my cunt and I throw my head back, body snapping up into his.

“Luxu!” I howl, with every bit of control of an animal in heat. Fuck it, I think. Whatever he wants from me, whatever deplorable mess he plans to turn me into tonight, I don’t care.

Just so long as he doesn’t stop.

His fingers curl inside me as though he is pulling the trigger of a gun. I can tell he’s savoring this, living for the feeling of how my pussy stretches, hot and wet around his fingers and dick. His breath is dangerously warm against the curve of my neck. He’s pumping so rapidly into me that the world is bleeding and blurring at the edges and my stomach twists in knots, electricity brewing between my hips.

Take me, I think. Snap me in half, I don’t want to register a world that could exist outside of the way he’s touching me, prodding me, making me come alive, so brand new and so sufficiently ruined.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes.” I whimper, eyes pinched shut, tears bubbling up. My nails bite into his back. Luxu howls, his thrusts becoming broken and staggered and I thank whatever powers exist in the universe that this man is coming undone too.

His slipper hand swipes my juices against my clit, and my body gives again, another orgasm like an electric shock shoving me straight over the edge of reality. I’m distinctly aware of a gush of wetness pooling between my thighs, on his and on the bed. I suck in a breath, eyes flying wide, so I can look up at his single golden eye, blown out, pupil huge.

“Dammit.” He hisses. “Fucking aye.” He hisses and pulls out, covering my stomach immediately with his hot, heavy load. I gasp, throwing my head back, my legs shaking my body tingling, spent and spasming and possibly overheated. “Goddamn, girl.” He mutters, propping himself up on one hand, wiping his brow with the other.

“Goddamn, you.” I laugh, sounding breathless. My throat feels raw, shredded. Well, he got his way, he surely did make me scream. “I’m still human.”

“Yeah, you don’t take it like you are…” He murmurs, lips ghosting my collar bone. “Squirt.”

My face goes bright red.

“No.” I demand.

“Oh, I think so.” He leers, pushing himself off of me, in favor of finding something to clean us up with. He disappears into a connecting room, which I’m going to bet is a bathroom, especially after he emerges with a towel wrapped around his cock. He tosses one at me and I catch it midair. Not the most romantic gesture of aftercare, but I guess better than a sock.

Even though said person that wiped me off with a sock scooped me up into his arms afterward, held me, giggling and delighted to his chest as he retrieved our clothes. My face burns for a very different reason as I wipe myself off.

“You alright?” He asks and I force myself to nod. 

“Was better with you on me.” I admit and he chuckles, climbing back over, onto the bed with me. He leans across and kisses my cheekbone in a way that makes me sigh. 

“You’re gonna like it when I get you on the ceiling.” He teases and I pull away, face hot and skin clammy, my mind going right away to somewhere I don’t want it to. He isn’t mine anymore, Lea’s not mine, Lea’s with Skuld, the memories we made are rutted in the past, jammed into chambers I don’t want to access anymore, and yet they’re still pouring out. Reminding me of his touch, his kiss, his praise. Omigod, omigod, how the fuck am I getting under someone else when I’m not over him, holy shit? How can he get over me, how is this done for us? “Squirt? Rueki?” Luxu calls out to me and I shake my head. 

“I’ve already…” I choke out. “I’ve done that… This was…” I start to push myself off the bed but realize my legs are damn jello beneath me. “Luxu I’m not…”

“You don’t need to be anything.” He says quickly, firmly, snaking a heavy arm around my waist.

“Is that even fair to you?” I ask and he just splays me back down on the bed, his hair creating a curtain around us that blocks out the rest of the world from my wide eyes. 

“You know what kind of step this is?” He asks, gesturing to our bodies. “I’m not upset about this for now.”

It’s the shittiest, shamble of a talk I’ve had with anyone about the nature of a relationship, but I see the sheer determination in his single, visible eye. I like the way I feel with him, I like how it leaves me breathless. I think I’ll like these pieces of our night when they become a memory and I’m stringing them together. I think that I’m not over Lea, and there’s a distinct possibility I never will be. But he’s moving on, he’s making choices just the same as I am. He wants someone else. 

And I want, above all other things, to feel good. So what if I know that Luxu has convinced himself that this baby step is fine because it’s a step that leads us toward ending up together. So what if I’m not half as optimistic. It doesn’t mean I need to resign myself to a night of self punishment in a cold and empty bed. Not when there’s someone that does give a fuck about me and does make me feel good about the choices I’ve made hovering right above me. 

I can’t have the man I love, he’s moving on with his life and whether I was the fire or the kindling, we did knock out that bridge, together. Who gives a fuck if this a rebound or if this is one night or if it’s a magical fairy tale like Luxu wants it to be. In this moment, he’s what I need, he’s what gets me by.

He’s the one who keeps me high.

“Okay.” I say, in a voice barely above a whisper. “Are you ready for another round then?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the first time you read a really brutal cliffhanger and like HATED the author for doing that to you? Have I sufficiently made you guys hate me more after reading this chapter?


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The running gag in my kh group chat with my friends, is that when RueBar/RueXu became canon, I'd lose all my readers...if you're still here, you're the realest

XXXVIII.

It’s early in the morning, cold light pours through the floor to ceiling window and I have never been so mortified to see the sun as I do now: clothes rumpled, hair pulled up in the sloppiest knot, eyes bleary, feeling nothing shy of hungover.

Walk of shame is a perfect descriptor.

Last night with Luxu was nice as all hell, but as I gather up my clothes, there’s a nagging in the back of my head, a soreness in my chest, only amplified as I head, fully dressed, down the hall. 

“Well, well, well. Bottom feeder indeed.” I want to drown myself immediately upon hearing the high voice.

Elrena stands, short hair bound into a tiny nub, looking immaculate wearing a pair of compression shorts and a sports bra. 

Her six pack is judging me, and without light magic tap dancing up my spine, I feel groggy. She has to know whose room I’m coming from

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve already scolded myself.” I adjust the impossible wrinkles of my shirt.

She huffs, rolls her aqua eyes and sets a hand on her slim hip.

“Are you actually going to make me ask?” She inquires, and I don’t even know where to begin.

“Um, you’re gonna have to be more specific than that. It’s early.” I remind her, but high on adrenaline from a recent workout, I’m sure she does not share in my same sluggishness. 

“You are literally an idiot.” She groans.

“I know.” I agree. “Probably the dumbest person I know.”

At this, she actually smirks.

“Was he actually good?” The look on her face implies that she feels dirty actually asking and I laugh, just a little bit, because I get it, fuck do I get it. She pouts, I shake my head.

“No, I’m not…” I sigh, there is no correcting my action. “Yeah. He’s really good. Like better than I wanted him to be.”

“Ew.” She makes a face.

“I know.” I agree. “He’s kind of the worst.”

“Please tell me he’s at least got a little dick.” She tries.

“I wish. Incredibly well endowed, stamina for days. Have you ever had sex on the ceiling? It’s kind of the greatest thing in the world.” I reply. “Plus, I mean, he is Lust.”

“I think I hate you for telling me that.” She says. I don’t remind her that she’s the one who asked, I don’t need to get slapped, our camaraderie is still tentative enough where I’m not trying to chance it. 

“I low key hate myself for knowing. I just didn’t want to think about…” My throat constricts. Oh no, oh shit. I quickly jam the heels of my hands into my closed eyes. Black out the fucking images, I order myself. Don’t think about her pretty black hair and pretty golden eyes beneath him, think of graying black hair beneath me, of a single golden eye drinking me in. “Lea’s with Skuld now.”

I’m surprised, when I resurface and see Elrena standing so much closer, face shockingly clear of the normal scowl that guards it. 

“I was right, wasn’t I? The soulmates thing is basically the universe’s way of kicking you in the throat.”

“It...it fucking hurts.” In ways that I cannot even begin to express. Her mouth presses together.

“It’s not going to stop. Fucking Xigbar isn’t going to change it. Life’s a bitch and then you die.” She says flatly, but there’s a new sort of earnestly in her expression, an honesty I know she’s been running from 

“Is that why you and Lauriam have been on each other’s nerves? Because fucking him didn’t change anything once you remembered your soulmate?” I ask, watching the color drain from her face. She’s going to hit me. She’s absolutely going to take back every kind action and slap me in the face.

“Nothing ever changes anything. He’ll come back to you. You’re bound to each other. But that doesn’t mean he’s ever going to love you again. Soulmates aren’t inherently romantic. You’re two halves of a whole. You’re meant to balance each other, but sometimes balance is pain. Better to get used to it now.” She hisses, a reminder to herself as much as it is to me.

“But if this hurts me, how can this not hurt him?” I plead, fully expecting her not to know, but despite her volatility, which makes mine look pale and meek, she is the safest person in this castle to ask.

“I’m not some sort of all knowing being, so take this how you want. But I’ve had a long time to think about this. I know you’re the person marked, too and I think the person marked is the person meant to suffer the awareness of the bond. He’s oblivious without you, and for that, congratulations, you get to dominate more often than not. But you’ve felt his soul before, you felt the beauty and the pain of becoming one for the first time, you’re forced to experience things more powerfully than him. But hey, you get to win more fucking arguments than not.” Bitterness drowns Elrena’s voice. “If it means anything, I know how it feels. Watching him find a new purpose, a life where you don’t mean anything to him.” Oh. I was under the striking impression that her soulmate was dead. But then, if he isn’t, why aren’t they together?

“Skuld does me better than me. She’s smart and sarcastic and clever without the goddamn panic attacks and insecurity. She’s so much fucking prettier.” I drag my teeth across my lower lip. “I just wish...I wish she wasn’t so much better.”

“But she is, and it’s better to face it now. You’ll never find understanding or pleasure anywhere else, like you found it in him.” She snaps.

“That’s disgusting.” I shake my head.

“Tell me about it.” She agrees, and undoubtedly, Elrena understands exactly the despair I feel at being so tethered to another. “You’ve got this role you’re supposed to play, Union Leader, Alchemist. Just play it and don’t expect anything else again. You got your moment with him, it’s better than what some get.”

It’s better than what she got.

“So that’s just it? Live out the rest of my days miserable and hollow?” And panic grips me at the mere thought, at feeling cold and numb and isolated for eternity, and I think I would gladly fall at Luxu’s feet to drink up the high his light brought me. I’m already eager to turn around and disappear back into his room.

“No. There are other things, it’s like I told you before. You don’t get pleasure anymore but…” Again, her gaze returns to the window. “Pleasure and pain are two sides to the same coin. You still have your agony. Deciding whether or not you like to feel the ache or force it on someone else is...distracting.”

Silence hangs between us, a calm before a storm, low and heavy and dark like clouds.

“Luxu did a thing--”

“I don’t want to hear about your disgusting sex life.” She cuts me off.

“No, not that.” I shake my head. “Lux. Light magic. It’s powerful, like giving into the darkness but not feeling the sting. It just feels...Good. Like so good.” My body shudders at the mere thought, but Elrena wrinkles her nose.

“So you’re content to be a junkie?” She scoffs.

“I’m so fucking sick of hurting.” I insist.

“Then you’re better off taking your double edged sword and putting it through anything that smiles too brightly. If everyone around you is miserable, you don’t hurt as bad.” And she starts to walk away, pushing herself off of the wall, but abruptly, she stops in her tracks, though she doesn’t turn to me. “Hurt Axel too. As much as you can, as deep as you can. It’ll kill you the first time but the sooner his smile fades, the sooner his happiness stops cutting you to the bone.”

“Elrena, who the hell is your soulmate?” I ask, once more. This time, she tilts her head, just slightly, toward me.

“My secret.” 

\--

Time curls by for the next two weeks in a circuit, predictable but electrifying nonetheless. No missions, no princesses to access. ‘Hands are tied, Rueki’, I’m told continuously as piles of research are thrust upon me. 

So I fill the sweet spots of my time stealing away with Luxu any chance I can. Titles don’t particularly matter, nor does subtlety. Every nook and cranny of the castle that we can wedge ourselves into, we do, touching and tasting and devouring each other. He takes a little bit of me with every brush of his lips against mine. I take a whole lot more and there’s almost a sense of pride in it, in the bleary, hazy way I come down from his light, from the love marks of my fingernails branded into his shoulder blades and his bites up and down my neck. Every time he presses me into a wall or I slam him down onto the carpet, it’s a guaranteed few hours before I walk right. 

We’re sprawled out on the floor in my room. I clutch the sheets close to my body, heaving, blinking back the fairy lights that burn beneath my eyes, every time he shoots Lux into me. We’re sprawled out on the floor, but I feel airy, lost in the atmosphere where he floats next to me.

“It’s a good thing we’ve had lots of time to nail out this research.” Luxu huffs beside me, I turn to watch the rise and fall of his chest, eyes tracing the scars my fingers touched only moments ago. “As if I’m gonna get any work done with you crawling all over me.” But he chuckles and swipes an arm around me, drawing me into the solidness that is his body. The only time I feel anchored, the only moment I feel grounded, is when he tries to pull me back down. My head’s in outer space anymore, and I’m content float away in it 

“Are you actually complaining?” I snort, pressing my cheek into a pectoral muscle, fingers splaying across his abdomen.

“Uh no.” He chuckles, swiping hands through my hair, which he untied nearly the second I wrapped my legs around him. “This is fun.” He tells me. I smile.

“Very.” I agree. If he’s smart though, he’ll leave it at that. 

“You don’t seem like half as much of a mess. Light’s working wonders on you, huh?” He asks, but I know he wants me to counter and tell him that it’s all him.

It’s not.

“Yeah.” I nod, wishing he wasn’t trying to center me, wishing he’d let me just sink into the heaviness my body takes on as I start to come down. 

“Where’s your head at, then?” He asks, I make a face.

“I like this.” I say firmly, heart tightening, skin feeling suddenly cold, despite our combined body heats. 

“But.” He says. “I can tell there’s a but.”

“Don’t take this from me.” I breathe. “Please, I’m not sane enough to be someone’s girlfriend.”

“You think I’m made to be someone’s boyfriend? As if.” He rolls his visible eye, but regardless of the logistics of titles, I know what he wants from me, something I’m hardly able to provide. But lost in his skin, delighting in the way his hand teases my hair and scalp, how do I tell someone that I’m just content to fuck them when I can’t even consider a life of added strings.

Not that I wouldn’t, because it is incredibly easy with him. But the last thing on my mind right now is an actual relationship. A mess of ups and downs, turbulence I’ve proven to myself that I only make the wrong choices while navigating. I don’t want the parts that are so real, the weight of them in my hands drags me back into orbit. I wish he hadn’t been dreaming of this, of me, for all of his massive lifetime. Something tells me if I were any other woman, he’d have been happy to keep me on my knees and out of his life.

“I just really like this. I don’t want to have fights with you that are too serious where they can’t be resolved in bed. I don’t want someone to cry to, I don’t want to be bugged about my nightmares. I feel good with you, isn’t that enough?” I ask. He mulls this over for a moment, hands never ceasing their musings with my hair. He doesn’t still but he’s also looking at the ceiling, so concerns start to bubble in my chest until he kisses my temple.

“Yeah.” He just says, twisting until we’re chest to chest and he’s holding me between both arms. What a delicious way to be kept by someone holding on so tight. “For now.”

\--

For four more weeks, there’s nothing but easy touching, desperate kissing, both of our hands know no limits, no boundaries.

It seems the only time we’re not woven together is when we’re actually researching, usually because I’m too sore to move and he’s been making comments about me needing to slow down with the light magic. Like he’s not the one pumping it straight to me, keeping my head in the clouds and my feet so wonderfully off the ground. 

That, or the nights I sneak away with my new friends, batting his hands off of me while I trail kisses down his neck.

“I’ve finally got Elrena only being medium mean to me, I’m not ditching everyone for you.” I tease him. He lifts me up by the tops of my legs though and presses me to the wall nearest to one of the stairways. “Someone is gonna catch us.” I laugh.

“Guess I’ll have to be quick.” He growls into my pulse point. Oh, dear Twilight. He really isn’t human.

I’m seeing stardust by time he sets me down and I stumble off, trying to remember what the sunset looks like or what hill we’re supposed to be meeting on again. I really might be having my brains fucked out. And life is much more painless this way.

I’m a mess of lazy limbs and bright eyes as I sink down in the grass, in the spot I’ve found home in, between Elrena and Ludor, with Lauriam on her opposite side and Emyd on his. Vanitas apparently isn’t joining us tonight, though he’s so spotty about when and how he wants human interaction, that none of us make a comment when he doesn’t show, and I doubt we ever will.

“Oh, you haven’t died.” Emyd says. I press my lips.

“I’m feeling really good, don’t push me, man.” I warn.

“No, I just think it’s awesome!” Emyd insists. “You’re not dwelling!”

Because obviously rumors have spread already through the castle. One pair of nosey ears or another picked up on the fact that Luxu and I are obviously hooking up, and my marriage obviously ended with my soulmate flat out choosing to be with someone else. Someone it was a long time coming, that he get together with. 

Oh no. Oh fuck, here it comes. My hands start to tingle as chills pinch every ounce of skin they can nip at. The mark in my hip is on fire but my insides are tightened and growing cold.

“Shut up.” Elrena snaps at him. “Maybe learn to speak about things you understand.” She snarls.

“I’m sorry, was that insensitive, Rueki?” Emyd fumbles, eyes growing comically wide, which is kind of sweet. “I just don’t really understand the soulmate thing, you know?”

“No, clearly you don’t, you bumbling fucking moron!” Elrena snarls and my eyes widen, I turn to her, where she’s fuming next to me, sparking again, unable to control her own current. She shakes out her arms, looks like she’s gonna leave for a moment and then wraps her arms around her knees, fingernails biting into the leather of her thigh high boots. That feral look remains in place on her otherwise pretty features though. The blown out eyes, the tiny pupils, the ice cold way her face goes ashen. “Maybe you should be seen instead of heard.”

Fuck, she’s mean to him. Ungodly mean, not that I would risk making a comment to her, but she’s unreasonably cruel to him on my behalf, which seems wild. I mean, in all honesty, what has Emyd or Demyx ever done to her? He’s clearly her polar opposite, but their elemental affiliations make sense of that. I mean, I can get along with Emyd and I’m clearly affiliated with the thunder, too. I guess I just don’t get it, the way she pokes him, the way she seems to genuinely hate him above everyone else, the show she makes of how nasty she can be to him. I mean, even if he did something in the past to piss her off, she knows very well that he doesn’t have his memories, knew that even when I didn’t, so why has she not thrown in his face what he did to upset her? It’s like she gets off in some way to the misery he doesn’t know why she’s causing.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh no.

My eyes flash between the two of them. I feel like a vacuum has been taken to my lungs. Oh, fuck. Please don’t line up.

But the pieces do, it’s as though I’ve finally assembled a particularly difficult jigsaw. Keeping her soulmate miserable is the only way she stays afloat. A soulmate who is back in her life, who is a very poignant reason for her to be following the Master around. If Luxu recruited Emyd first, if she chased him here, the way thunder chases the storm, why would she not have found a way to uncover if he had his memories back or not? Oh, Elrena…

Her soulmate. Her soulmate who was three ranks ahead of her in Organization XIII, someone who probably died and was recruited long enough for her to miss him, long enough for her heart to be shredded against the current, the way mine is consumed by flames. Her soulmate who has no idea what she should mean to him and doesn’t trust her as far as he can throw her because every bit of her instincts told her, as a Nobody without memories, that she should claw at him. Her soulmate, so painfully close and so out of reach. 

So this is what it’s like, I think. Really being along for the ride.

“Are you alright, Rueki? You look quite ill.” Lauriam inquires. Elrena’s eyes meet mine. Desperate fear flashes through them, I suck in a breath.

“Yeah, I’m good. Is anyone else fucking over reasearch though, I mean dear Twilight if I have to read anything written by Even ever again, I’m going to pull my hair out.” I wave a hand.

Elrena’s posture relaxes a little. Her eyes don’t stop trembling that night, though.


	40. Chapter 40

XXXIX.

The woman in the mirror becomes a stranger, there’s nothing more satisfying than that.

I have ice cream every night for a month with Elrena, Lauriam, Ludor and Emyd. Vanitas rarely comes around, but that also means he’s rarely around to taunt me. 

It keeps me in the clouds, riding through the smoke, through the gunpowder haze that my lover has my limbs and heart and mind twisted through. 

Luxu fucks me sweetly to sleep, whispering against my skin about the perfection that I’m not sure I could possibly embody, but it sounds convincing coming off of him. I wake in the middle of the night. I don’t even scream. What’s a nightmare anymore, really, when there’s enough light to burn it all out, mere inches from me?

Wha’s a nightmare, when it’s just two cloaked women on a hillside, watching clouds roll in? It’s not unnerving, I tell myself, not even as a woman in a pink cloak points up at the sky.

“And that’s why I’m worried. Can’t trust the storms.” Her voice is so familiar, a breath of air, feather light, sweet and twinkling and omniscient but I can’t place it. “The Master always finds a way to shape the clouds.”

“The flowers will die without the rain.” A woman in a white cloak counters, a voice I’ve heard in my dreams before.

“You sacrificed so much just to ensure this storm. I just want you to be prepared for the possibility that it will ravage this field.” Pink warns.

“You used to be so optimistic, are you not betting it all on her, any longer?” White asks, almost a lilt in her sweet, teasing voice.

“I didn’t account for Luxu in the way I should have.” Pink admits. “I didn’t account for the choices he made, or what would happen to you.”

“The dark was made to chase the light. When the time comes, I’ll be happy she made that choice. If she didn’t, there wouldn’t be any stopping Luxu. The light would already be in the Master’s hands.” White reminds her.

“We always knew this would be a shot in the dark.” Pink sighs, stands and then looks at me. I don’t see her face, her hood and something glinting, like a mask I can barely make out, shield her from me, but I watch her mouth move at the speed of light and somehow process what she says directly to me. “I brought you the darkness so you could see the glory of the light. Open up your eyes and understand the closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes. Quick! It’s swallowing you!”

Every time this is how I wake. And every time, Luxu stirs beside me, in his bed, in the bed we’ve been religiously sharing. He swipes a hand through his silken hair and heaves a sigh. 

“Another one?” He asks. I just shrug, looking at the dark distortion of the shadows forming across the room in the icy moonlight. What’s a nightmare, really? What’s so unnerving about strange women sharing veiled secrets?

“Sorry.” I whisper, ensuring he’s out of reach of the discussions that will change our course.

“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugs, like it doesn’t, like he wants me to believe it’s all okay, that none of the fresh scars on my mind could deter him any more than the ones on my body do. He pushes himself up in the bed, twists over, and kisses my lips. His mouth is harsh and demanding, even when I think he’s trying to be sweet. Greedy hands push my legs open. “Let’s get you all nice and relaxed, hmm?” He sinks down between my legs, aching for taste. My hands form fists in his hair, my toes curl. He grips my thighs hard enough to bruise and shoves light straight into my body.

He wakes me up much in the same way, rising just after I do, at daybreak. His cock’s stiff at my backside, he grinds it against my ass. 

“Got a little something for you, squirt.” He groans, voice sending a chill straight down my spine. It spreads like an explosion through my insides until I reach around and grasp his hips, just to rub our bodies closer.

“Nothing little about that.” I say and he bursts out laughing, so I do too, noticing my stomach aches. I’ve laughed a lot lately, I realize, but the memories almost seem foreign. Phantom sensations of pleasure wash over me, and I realize I’ve felt none of this ghosting delight, despite being distinctly aware of it.

“Good girl.” But I do feel that, words that reverberate across my insides. I slide my hand into his, bringing it around to my clit. “No, little Rueki, the something I have is that I’m sending you to Midgar today.”

“Oh are you?” And I don’t like the pick up in my arousal as I think about Midgar, but he goes with it, rubbing his cock against my slickness. The head of his cock brushes my folds. I’m not thinking about that beautiful stranger in Midgar. Not when the friction of the body behind mine is damn satisfying, not when the calloused hands teasing and circling my clit are capable of magic on their own. 

I like Luxu. I like him a lot. But thoughts of flaming red hair and light eyes sting my heart and singe my desire in tandem. Now this is feeling something and I hate it.

He doesn’t say another fucking thing about Midgar. Instead, Luxu hammers into me hard enough to make me see spots, enough to tear my breath away, enough to make my legs twitch and my body sputter. 

I’m a mess, lying in his bed on my back, staring up at the ceiling. With a numb and pleasantly tingling body, my mind’s up in heaven, my heart won’t come down.

But--

But by time Luxu’s done in the shower and I slip in, the light’s gone. My greedy heart has already eaten the shot he gave me. My body’s a thousand degrees, so I twist the knob in the shower until it’s pumping out ice water. I sit on the floor, letting it hit me, letting it pelt my skin until the water pressure paints me red. 

Goosebumps come to life on my flesh, I’m shivering but I still feel so damn hot. I think my face has gone numb. I don’t realize I’m crying until my eyes ache and I’m having trouble catching my breath. I clap a hand over my mouth as the darkness that was once biting the edges of my mind starts to consume and devour, working overtime for every second Luxu’s light repressed it.

Kairi died. Half of my friends hate me and the other half will in time. The world is moving on without me, my friends are coasting past me.

Lea doesn’t want me. I was a bookmark, a placeholder for her, for Skuld, for someone prettier and smarter and worlds more noble than I could ever be. A heroin, just as righteous and determined for a put together type of self improvement as he is. Good for him, fucking great for him.

A hiccuppy sob penertaits my lips, I chomp down on my fist, willing myself to just shut the fuck up and shove this back down. Things are good, things are fine, just because there’s a hot ache in my mind, demanding attention, doesn’t mean I need to grant it.

This goes on until my muscles start to scream in protest. I turn off the ice water, wipe my body and my tears with a towel and wrap it around myself. Like I do every fucking morning. 

It’s not a problem, after all, what’s a problem when I can tap into a light source? Really. My life has settled in so nicely, Luxu keeps me close to the stars at all points in time, gets me so high I forget what it feels like to come down.

But then I do and I--

Crash would be an appropriate feeling, but the problem is, I go too long without light and I don’t stop falling. And somehow, none of this takes away from the pain in my chest and under my skin and the throbbing headache that comes along with the lack of all things bright.

But it’s not a big deal, it’s not a problem. I emerge from the bathroom, still wrapped in the towel, about ready to ask for another hit when I’m met by another figure in the room. 

Luxu’s wearing a pair of black trousers and a belt, he’s got his hair pulled back and his coat in his arms and the Master is standing right at the door, leaning against the frame like it’s his day job. 

“Oh.” The Master chuckles at my emergence. I exhale sharply. Okay, it’s not like Luxu and I have been subtle. This moment was coming. We weren’t going to be able to avoid it. But why is it happening after my stupid reoccuring fluke of a morning breakdown? “So when you said you’d already updated her, you meant this morning.”

“I am going to go back to my room.” I clear my throat, swiping a hand back through the soaking tendrils of my hair. 

“C’mon, stay.” Luxu says, like he has absolutely no clue why I might not want to be here. And why would he, when he’s still riding on a high, when what he wants is me pointedly on his arm in front of his peers. This is the sucky part, I guess. The part where I’m coming down and he’s still up in the sky, as certain about me as he’s ever been. Good for him, I suppose but not for me. Not when I need time and space to sort out how much further I want to take this and he’s about to do the normal person equivalent to introducing his fuck buddy to his parents. He beckons me over with the wave of his hand, and to not be an asshole, I do come over. But before he can sneak an arm around me, I snatch up his coat. It doesn’t fit nicely, he’s a lot more barrel chested than Lea was, and his shoulders are wider, but then again I wasn’t looking for a tailor made fit as much as I was looking for coverage. 

“How did I not know about this?” The Master waves hands excitedly at both of us, and while he acts elated, I get the distinct feeling that this is very much an act. He has hands in both of our hearts, I’m not buying this.

“Can we not?” I ask. 

“I’m just excited for you two crazy kids, that’s all. To be young and in love.” The Master chuckles, but I bristle with a lot more than discomfort and actually weasel out of Luxu’s arm to start retrieving my clothes from the floor. This is flat out humiliating.

“So I’m going to Midgar.” I say, quickly. When I come back up from the floor, Luxu’s visible eye is on me and I could shout. Please, I try to convey with my heart, please don’t do this to me right now. I mean it’s not like we haven’t talked about this.

“You’re going to Midgar.” The Master nods as my clothes become a bundle in my arms. “There’s something called Materia there.”

“Right, one of the Shinra employees mentioned it.” I nod. 

“Oh perfect, so you know about it?” He asks. No, not really, I want to answer but instead I just shrug. “You’re gonna want to go to the sixth district, to a place called ‘Wall Market’, Luxu can drop you off there. There’s a shop near a massage parlor, guy’s kind of a salty character but he got his hands on some magic materia, laced with darkness. That, sugar, is gonna be the little kick start you’ll need to open up your own dark corridors. Which is a good thing, because you’ll be onto princess number six tomorrow.” 

“Motunui?” I lift a brow. 

“Yep. So, Luxu can send you on over to Wall Market when you’re decent. All you’ll have to do is pick up the dark Materia and install it into your Keyblade. Heck, pick yourself up a couple more if you’re feeling fancy, it could seriously boost your alchemy.” The Master offers, tugging a velvet pouch from his robe. He tosses it at me, and with no hands free, I let it fall to the ground, clanking at my feet. “It’s gil, Midgar’s currency.”

“How is Materia going to help me with alchemy?” I ask, though the fact that it can makes a lot of sense as to why I have those strange little slots in my Keyblade. 

“It’s used to cast magic a lot of times. So, hypothetically if you have a water Materia…” The Master begins, rolling his wrist, leading me.

“And I want to synthesize a Flashflood, I no longer need a water gem.” That makes a lot of sense.

“Bingo!” The Master nods. “I knew you were a smart one. Bring a friend with you, go nuts. Have fun, you’ve earned it.” He nods and goes to head out the door. “See you at the ark, Luxu?”

“Right.” Luxu murmurs, eye narrowed as he looks at me. I’m cursing internally. 

“By the way. Congrats, Luxu. You’ve earned it.” It. Earned it. As in me. As in his prize, as in his crowning glory, as in his victory lap. He says it like he’s congratulating a child for doing all of his chores and rewarding him with an allowance. I’m a toy given to a boy with perfect marks in school. I’m a fucking birthday present. My face burns, my eyes sting. Luxu doesn’t say a word and neither do I, we’ve both got to feel it, the shift in the room, the tear in the space we occupy. The Master leaves, I give myself three seconds to pinch my eyes shut and take a deep breath. 

“So what was that all about?” Too bad Luxu doesn’t even give me that. My eyes pop open, he’s got his eyebrows lifted and his head cocked, so playful, but the weight of his words is tremendous.

“Oh, come on, I’m not good at the feelings thing.” I shake my head and take my face into his hands. “Let’s fuck real quick before I go to Midgar, we’re better at that.” But as I’m about to crawl into his lap, he stops me, hands on my hips, single eye on mine.

“I may not know how to be your boyfriend, but I do know you just put a wall up, squirt.” He squeezes my hips and pushes me back just a little, just so I stagger off of him. “You don’t get to do that.”

“So only you get to?” I raise an eyebrow. “Or are you forgetting the whole keeping a secret about soulmates from me?”

“Damn, you don’t let shit go, do you?” He shakes his head, leaning back into his hands.

“You’re the one whose always got an eye on me. You answer that.” I cross my arm to my chest and come to terms with how right he is. I did just put a wall up, right between the two of us. “I told you I don’t like the weight that you’re putting on all of this. I don’t want to get congratulated by the Master, I don’t want to get caught in the hallways with you, I don’t want to have to explain the weirdness of all of this to Elrena or Ludor or anyone, because I wanted this to be ours.”

“Right, totally.” He waves a hand. “And that means pretending this isn’t happening, even when we get caught in the act. Silly me.” The way his tone drips in sarcasm bristles my skin. It crackles and I squeeze a fist, trying to let go of some of my bubbling tension.

“Dude, I am not ready.” I remind him. “I was fucking up front with you there.”

“Join the club, little Rueki. I told you right off the bat, you’re it for me. My heart’s been yours since before you were born.” He says. “So play coy all you want, act like you’re gonna put up a fight if it makes you feel any better, but you can’t outrun your destiny any more than anyone else can.”

My heart spasms in my chest, weak but pissed, trembling and tired. Something’s wrong, something’s off, something’s not making sense and it’s yanking me in different directions.

“Stop telling me what my destiny is, stop telling me where I belong. Is it too fucking much for me to want something to happen organically? What ever happened to this not meaning anything if I’m not all in?” I ask, my hands starting to shake in frustration. 

“Look, I’m good at waiting. But I’ve got my limits.” Luxu looks like he’s trying very hard not to close the distance and snap me in half.

“A month is where you tap out then and just say fuck it?” I ask.

“It hasn’t been a month for me, Rueki.” His fist is curling at the edge of the bed. I yank off his coat and throw it straight at him, just to change into my own clothes with furious speed. He’s putting on his coat. “It’d be one thing if I didn’t know you had stars in your eyes for someone else, but even if I couldn’t peep into your heart whenever the fuck I wanted, I can see that from a mile away. Getting taunted by my siblings on the daily over being second best? It’s cool, it’s a great time. I wasn’t supposed to be your consolation prize.” And I’m sure a lot of other things were supposed to be different, and if he thinks I didn’t wish on the regular that my heart and soul didn’t feel like they were tugging me in different directions, then he’s ignorant.

“It’s been a month, Luxu. You want me to be fucking over something that was supposed to last forever, in a month.” I point out. 

“He wants to be with someone else. He chose her, what more does he have to do? Fuck her in front of you? Knock her up? Marry her?” He asks and each beat of his words are blows to the house of cards my self esteem has become. Tears prickle my vision, I smear them away. Fuck me, I know Lea is with Skuld, why do word make it so much harder?

“I don’t like what this is turning into, can you give me some light and we can reevaluate later?” I ask, shaking out my hands, which are starting to spark again, explosive even when I’m trying not to be.

“Fuck, why is it so hard for you to just let reality be reality? Soulmates challenge you by nature, I’m just here trying to kick back and live happily, you’re ruining your own pretty little future.” Luxu sighs, shaking his head as he cranes it back to the ceiling.

“Get fucked.” I hiss. “I am consistently the only one looking out for me.”

“Oh really? Not the guy trying to ensure you get your daily doses of light magic and unproblematic, easy going affection?” His eye meets mine again, his brows inch back to his hairline.

“Telling someone you’re their destiny but they’re just too stupid to see it, is problematic. The expectations you have are problematic. You bashing Lea any chance you get is problematic.” I point out. 

“Well so is you trying to keep one had on me and one hand on him. You can’t have it both ways, and I’m way too old to sit here and indulge you through your little mood swings. You’re human and by nature, I get it, that makes you pretty fucking stupid. But that doesn’t mean I need to suck your ass while you figure it out.” He rolls his visible eye. 

“I can’t keep up with you constantly taking back the things you promise me. You’ll be everything for me, you’re okay being nothing for me, you’ll wait, you won’t.” I shake my head. “And I’m sure not going to suddenly jump on board and get excited to settle in with someone whose idea of sweet talking gives me whiplash.”

“Damn, it must really suck to have met your match.” He says, my face immediately loses all color. “I know you like to be in it to duke it out, don’t get it twisted, I love a chase. But the forbidden thing doesn’t stay fun long. Give it a rest already and just choose to be happy.”

But I think I was. I think I was trying to, and how do I tell him I can’t figure out when it started to become too much to handle?

“Choosing you doesn’t make me happy.” And before he has time to utter another word, I scoop up my shoes and take off out of his room, down the hall.

In this moment, there’s no one I hate more than him. There’s no one I’m more frustrated with except for maybe myself, for thinking I found a fast track to joy. To think I found enough light to finally wipe away the dark. Where I once felt weightless I now only feel a need to break my fist on something beautiful, and for that I’m fully content to blame Luxu. Without the shot of light, pieces of my heart fall off in chunks and shards faster than my hungry hands can catch.

My knuckles rap desperately at a door, maybe a little too hard, but I need answered before Luxu tries to come after me.

Thankfully, Elrena answers the door, looking half a mess, one of her strange little antenna bangs hanging in her face. 

“Huh, I thought you’d be under Xigbar right now.” She raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. I shake my head.

“I’m not his. Can I come in?” I beg, voice shaking. Her eyes flash.

“I’m not good at the whole girl talk thing.” She tells me. 

“I don’t want girl talk, I have to go to Midgar, I want you to come with me and get wasted with me” I confess. “Shit, maybe we pick a fight with strangers.”

She blinks at me, blinks and I count the heartbeats hammering into my temples until she opens her door and lets me in. The door latches behind us and I stop feeling so frantic. Instead, I lean against her door as she takes a step back, and I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.

“He’s a piece of shit.” She tells me. I look up, peeking an eye at her. She doesn’t look quite comfortable, but she also doesn’t look unsure about the words that left her mouth.

“Yeah, I told him as much.” I nod.

“You know, if you wanna break some shit, we can do it around here. Vanitas and I can take turns beating the hell out of you.” She offers. I snort. “Sorry, but the fact that you haven’t already tried to murder anyone tells me that you’re more the type that doesn’t feel right without stomaching some suffering.” 

Ugh. She might not be wrong there.

“No, no. I have to go to Midgar. Turns out I’m broken and that’s why I can’t light travel.” I explain. “Too much darkness in my heart to manifest light.”

“Well that’s fucked.” She mutters. I couldn’t agree more.

“So the Master tracked down a place in Midgar where I can buy something called Dark Materia. If I toss one into my Keyblade, I should be able to open up dark corridors again.” I explain.

“And you want to pick a fight and get drunk there and not in a world you already know? I thought your home world was basically a redneck ship hub. You have bars there, don’t you?” She asks.

“Yeah, but there are too many faces that might recognize me there. I don’t know that I want to remember what’s in my head by the end of the night.” I explain. Her eyes light with recognition. She looks me over for a long while and I wish she would just pull the fucking trigger.

“Alright.” She finally concedes. “But we are getting absolutely wasted. Which means we both need to change, neither of us are getting drinks bought for us by skeevy looking strangers, looking like this.” She waves a hand at how she’s sweaty, and disheveled and I look like I probably have spent a week in the gutter. I flash a beaming smile.

Thank fuck for my shopping spree in Shibuya.

“Well I now own enough makeup to stock a shop. And enough shoes to open a brick and mortar. What size are you?”

\--

If anyone would have told me, even a year ago, that I would have spent a girly afternoon doing makeup and trying on a thousand different outfits with Larxene after a fight with Xigbar, I probably would have had a conniption. 

I’m still not quite in the clouds, but I’m functionally repressing the whirling in my head as Elrena opens up light travel to send us out of her room and into Midgar, me in a black bodycon dress, sky high heels and black lipstick. To my surprise, even my usual wing and mascara combination works with this lip. 

Elrena’s wearing a pair of skin tight leather leggings, a fluttery black shirt with a massively wide v-neck. She makes her lack of tits work for her in ways that I can’t, exposing the perfect amount of perky cleavage, which is only emphasized by the chunky belt wrapped around her waist. 

The whole procuring Materia thing is easy. That Master’s directions are easy enough to follow, and to my surprise, the area of Midgar that we’re dumped into doesn’t have Elrena and I causing half as much of a scene, dressed to the nines as I’d have thought. Instead, we’re met by flashing, strobe lights, giggling drunk girls, falling over each other, squawking, disorderly men, and clusters of people, dressed like sexy Bumblebees, heading into the edge of an alley. This place is a fucking zoo. Peddlers scream at us, I pick up a few different types of elemental Materia and could probably have treated myself to more, but I’d rather save the gil the Master gave me for drinks with Elrena. 

She hooks an arm into mine, raising an eyebrow and inclinging her head to a seedy looking hole in the wall, with a broken, neon sign strobing on the outside. Even from the outside, I can see an old man, passed out in front of a window, head folded on his arms. It’s honestly perfect.

“This might be a good time to tell you I can’t handle my liquor.” I inform her. She rolls her eyes, but her smirk doesn’t break. 

“Yeah, I could tell that just by looking at you. Lucky for you, I’m smart enough to handle my friends.” She says. My eyes go wide. She huffs. “Let’s not make a big deal about it. You kept your big stupid mouth shut the other day. I know you know. So, thank you. It does mean you count as my friend.”

I want to ask her how the fuck I’m not supposed to make a big deal about this, but before I can even open my mouth, she straight up drags me into the bar. We’re met immediately by a thick, dense haze, despite the fact that no one is smoking. The place is pretty packed, but mostly with old men and frat boy types. There’s a group of girls slobbering on each other as they down one too many shots and a remarkably pretty girl in a Bumblebee costume, leaning against a guy who must have a great personality.

Elrena leads me over to the bar, and darkness doesn’t just knock at the edges of my heart, but rather tears it claws down the open wound my mind has become. I roll my shoulders. I just need a drink, a drink and whatever is poking at my mind will shut the fuck up and I’ll stop feeling so nauseous and misplaced.

Elrena orders us both doubles of whiskey, taking a seat at the bar, one black painted fingernail raised. The bartender's eyes dip to her exposed chest and defined collar bones. I can’t really blame the guy for being sexually frustrated by Elrena. Me too, dude, me too. She crosses one leg over the other as I climb, a lot less gracefully onto the barstool. I’m not used to wearing this tall of heels, for sure. As cute as they look, this was probably a bad choice, I get the feeling that they’re going to be coming off the second I get buzzed and this floor doesn’t look sanitary to walk around on like that. 

We get two glasses, Elrena raises hers, I do the same.

“To dry spells.” She toasts and I bark out a laugh.

“To quick deaths.” I say, we clink our glasses together. She empties hers immediately and I do the same, though I nearly gag on the burn. It’s effective, I remind myself. It will work, it will get me drunk enough to cool the white hot pulsation of the headache that is pressing into my skull.

Elrena gestures to the bartender for two more and leans on the bar, pressing a hand to her cheek.

“You know, I’ll never admit this or anything, and if you tell anyone else, I will actually skin you…” She begins. I nod.

“Naturally.”

“But it’s been nice, hanging out as a group. I still think someone needs to kick Vanitas, but having an excuse to get away from Ira’s high and mighty bullshit is ideal.” She says. I don’t tell her that someone has kicked Vanitas, probably too much, because I don’t disagree about the kid needing an attitude adjustment, but can’t the same be said about all of us? Well, at least her, me and him. “It’s like the only thing Ira seems okay letting me disappear for. He’s got a thing about team building. I didn’t know this or anything before the last war, but it looks like he and the other Foretellers tore themselves apart. They were a bickering mess.”

“They really haven’t gotten better. I mean, you heard Aced and Luxu get into it, whatever day that was.” It was well over a month ago, but it doesn’t feel that long, thanks to the daze I’ve been caged in. 

“Well, he seems resolved to suck the Master’s ass again, and the Master respects teamwork. Anyhow, it keeps him off my ass. And he probably thinks it’ll keep him from being killed.” Elrena waves a hand. My eyes flash.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“What, Ludor not tell you?” She asks. I wait for her to tell me more, she rolls her eyes. “He didn’t join the Dandelions until his literal deathbed. He fought Luxu, Ira, Aced, Invi and Ava. And he watched each of them fall in one way or another. It sounds like they died on the battlefield.”

“That sounds so human.” I wrinkle my nose.

“Well clearly not, any of the rest of us couldn’t come back so easily.” She shrugs. “Still, I think it’s left a poor taste in their mouth, how hard they fought bringing them to such a quick end.”

“Right, I’m just wondering what could bring someone back like that.” 

“Maybe Xigbar brought the others back. Maybe Master Ava.” Elrena offers.

“Maybe.” I concede, but I’m far from dropping this. Sora’s memories offer me a glimpse into Luxu insisting that a hero throwing himself into the fire isn’t a smart choice, I don’t think he’s the type to pull the others from death via the power of waking, if it meant putting his neck on the line. And if Ava is preoccupied and feeling friction between her and the others, why would she have brought them back just in time for another war? 

We get our second round of drinks. 

“To black clothes that hide blood stains.” Elrena toasts.

“To enough thunder spells to keep us clean.” I say, and we pound our drinks. Once more, Elrena calls for another round, and I’m sure this is going to be dangerous when I start to feel it. My core is warm, but that’s all I’ve got going right now.

“You know, I don’t think it was Ava.” I shake my head. “The Master says she’s having issues with his plan.”

“Ooh, unrest within the ranks?” She raises her brows.

“I guess. He told me a little, but no one really wants to budge anymore. He just said Ava wasn’t into how much blood would be on her hands.” I explain. Elrena’s mouth twists.

“I’m not really surprised. Master Ava actually looked out for the rest of us. I chose Ira’s Union from the start. Unicornis. But Master Ava actually seemed to care about what it cost us to gather lux, how safe we’d all be. It was important for her that the Dandelions were able to prosper and not just survive. She was different. A lot of things were different then. People gave a shit.” She mutters detachedly. I reach a hand to hers, and to my surprise, she doesn’t pull away, just looks up from the spot she was focused on, and into my eyes. “I think you’re an idiot, for actually being optimistic about the Master changing the world. But I do hope you’re right. I do hope things feel like they felt then.”

“I hope the entire realm can go back to feeling that way. I hope we can get a taste of what it’s like to be carefree. It sucks, feeling foolish for thinking that’s the way things should be.” I murmur.

“It does. And it really fucking sucks about Axel and you.” Yes, yes it does, every neuron in my head fires off as bitterness fills my mouth. “I still stand by you being more annoying back then, but it was pretty obvious how happy he made you.” 

“Can I ask about you and...him?” I raise an eyebrow. Not Axel, but she knows that. Her mouth curls into a tight pout.

“I hate talking about it. It makes me seem weak and stupid.” She confesses.

“I fucked Xigbar, I think I’m the weakest and stupidest one of us here.” I remind her. She snorts. “Besides, you know I’m good for shutting my mouth.” 

“I didn’t like him when I met him. Emyd.” She slips a hand through her hair, tucking it back behind her ear, eyes taking on an immediate wistful quality. “I thought he was a dumb, lazy, useless slacker that couldn’t lift a finger for a friend in need and I had no respect for that. I still think all of that’s true...but...whoever said love and hate are two sides to the same coin is a liar. And an idiot. It was like the second our eyes met, we’d be driving each other crazy, me at his throat. I guess that hasn’t changed, the idea we could even be friends is laughable. But every time he’d leave, there was no relief. There was always something missing. He helped me search for Stelitzia, something I wanted to do because she was the friend of a friend, because I liked her, because she was warm and kind, even if we weren’t very close. Em would come back to me and act like it was because I was bullying him and I’d welcome him in to have another fight, just so we could spend more time together. It wasn’t as simple as like or hate anymore. Maybe it never was. The heart and soul are complex things. I remember telling him to stop being so useless, and crying in an abandoned building and trying to figure out why it seemed like we were never gonna find Stelitiza. He had bigger balls then. He kissed my hair, my lips, my eyes. We were just kids, but we didn’t feel like it then, everything felt so major. He touched me and we…”

She clears her throat.

“It didn’t last long. He died as we were being hurtled forward in time. I had enough time to fall apart over him. And then I woke up in the World That Never Was and had no memory of someone who I would have chased and led into any storm. The only person who ever made me feel settled, the only person who never managed to feel the sting of my spark and not flinch. I didn’t remember his face, I just felt this insufferable pull toward someone I didn’t want to be with. We hooked up. Just a couple of times, never with any realization of who the other was. And I was a bitch to him, always, afterward. Like I was trying to overcompensate for slumming it with him. I’d make this big show of throwing myself at Marluxia afterward, or degrading him and…” She groans, carding a frustrated hand through her hair, so I squeeze her hand a little tighter. “Now, I’ve got memories. Of loving him. And he doesn’t have that. He just has me being a psycho bitch to him, because it made me feel better at the time and helped me forget the way that I would have killed anyone in the room to kiss him. Sometimes I wonder if he feels lonely too.”

We get our drinks. She raises hers.

“To Xigbar.” She toasts. I crack a broken smile.

“To Marluxia.” We drink.

“Why are you calling him Luxu all of a sudden?” She asks. I choke.

“Um, because he prefers hearing that name in bed, and I already have enough issues calling the guys I’m with by the wrong name, to have to remember two?” I more ask than say and we both burst out laughing, my hands tingling, my face warm. Thank Twilight, I’m feeling it now.

“I’m so done hearing your dumb mouth. Go change the song on the jukebox or something.” But she pats my cheek with far more fondness than I could ever expect as I rise and she orders another round of drinks for us. My legs shake, I’m definitely feeling it, I’m--

I spin around and come face to face with the clearest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.

I’m hallucinating now.

“You!” The hallucination speaks, I’m still not convinced he’s real. An angular face pulls away from mine, frustration washes across the features of the lanky man, the stranger from the Shinra building, an arm wraps around his and yanks him back.

“Hey!” A woman admonishes. “Be nice, you’re off the clock!” I know that voice.

“Yeah, I was supposed to be off the clock when these two broke into the boss’s office.” Red blurts and though he’s silent, I see the bald man who chased Elrena is standing next to him, still blocking the view of whatever woman is with them. 

If someone here looks like me and is out on some sort of date with someone who looks like Axel, I’m giving up this whole life and checking into a psych ward.

“It’s no one’s fault but your boss’s that the security was bad.” Elrena snorts.

“We’re not here to steal shit, calm your tits.” It’s a lot more slurred and with a lot less eloquence that I spit the words out, but from behind the men, the woman gasps.

“Oh, I know you!” She pushes past red and baldy and I’m met by a familiar face, surrounded by cascading brown hair, lit by a warm smile, despite the dimly lit surroundings. “Rueki!”

“Aerith!” I nearly trip over myself and to throw my arms around her, taken aback by just how excited I am to see her. My interaction with her since returning home has almost been minimal, but months worth of not seeing a face that reminds me of home is--

Oh, my breath is gone, I hold her too tight, there’s a hand on my heart like it’s a grenade and I’m sure it’s going to burst within the minute. I want to go home, I wanna be with my family, and I squeeze Aerith like she’s all that’s left of it.

“You two know each other?” Red gapes.

“Who’s she?” Elrena asks.

“What are you doing here? Is Yuffie here too? I didn’t think you could get here with the Gummi Ship.” I shake my head.

“She’s not, but Tifa is!” Aerith beams. “We’re searching for Cloud, he’s been gone a bit too long, so we’re both calling up some old friends. Tifa and I both lived here for a little while before Radiant Garden was restored, and all clues point to Cloud being here.”

“But the Gummi Ship…” I trail off, about to be straight up pissed, even in the veil my drunkenness has tossed over my eyes, if I could have just been traveling in my ship if the Master would let the damn barrier to Daybreak Town down.

“I can’t believe Cid didn’t tell you! He developed a new block, he says it’s still kind of tempermental, but he installed it in a ship so Tifa and I could track Cloud down.” Aerith explains and at the mention of my godfather’s name, my face goes pale. We release each other and Aerith cocks her pretty head to the side. “Rueki, is something wrong with Cid?”

“No, it’s just…” I bite my lips. “No one’s really talking to me right now.” Our next round of drinks comes, Elrena extends one to me and I have to remind myself that sighing in relief at getting booze served is not a socially appropriate reaction. “Thanks.”

“Are you two gonna explain yourselves or…?” Elrena begins, but cuts herself off by pounding back her shot. I follow suit and set my empty glass on the bar behind us. 

“I’m wondering the same thing.” Red says and baldy nods.

“Oh, sure. Rueki this is Reno and Rude.” Aerith eans forward, staging the cutest little whisper. “They pretend to be bad guys, but they’re total softies.” My eyes hit Reno’s, the redhead. Bad guys that are total softies. I have a type so bad it hurts.

And I belong to no one. I’m looking this gorgeous man in the eyes and feeling a whole lot more available.

“Aerith grew up in Radiant Garden, too. Lot of mutual friends between the two of us.” I explain to Elrena who just nods. Reno’s stuck in contemplation mode, brow furrowed, maybe at the idea of having drinks with someone who made him do extra paperwork. Maybe he’s already contemplating the same very fucked up idea I am.

If I close my eyes, he’s Lea. The violent surge of emotion roars once more in my heart. Lea, Lea, Lea, his name demands to be heard, knocks at all corners of my consciousness until we get another round of drinks ordered. Aerith and Rude both have no issue saddling up for drinks with us, Aerith next to me, Rude next to her. Reno looks to Rude, who shrugs.

“They’re not Avalanche.” Is Rude’s reply. Reno turns back to me.

“Good enough.” He seems to decide then leans across the bar and orders us all shots of bourbon. Vaguely, in the haze of my thoughts, I think I remember it being bad to mix liquor. But we get our shots and Elrena takes hers without question so I follow suit. Dear fuck, that is absolutely disgusting. And Aerith and Elrena taking their shots like actual champs has me looking like a straight up bitch. Next to me, Reno chuckles. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a fru fru drink type.”

“I actually don’t drink.” I admit. “Usually.”

“So watch your shoes, she’s pretty good at getting sick on them.” Elrena pats my shoulder and I choke on a laugh.

We go through the usual introductions, who is who and how we know each other. On mine and Elrena’s end, glaring details are left out, but I’m sure Reno and Rude, based on their demeanor alone, have plenty they’re keeping below the surface.

“By the way...why are people not talking to you?” Aerith asks suddenly, leaning past Reno to look at me. There’s something in the wideness of her eyes and the sheer curiosity on her face that remind me, momentarily of Kairi. But Kairi’s a child, I tell myself, a little kid compared to Aerith.

The calendar on the wall behind the bar tells me that she’s not though. Kairi’s gonna be eighteen in a few weeks time. A pit drops my stomach directly into a black hole. Kairi’s growing up without me. Wrapped up in my own meltdown, I’ve been absolute trash at being a friend. I am the single most selfish person I know. And what excuses do I even have anymore. My heart quickens. Shit, that’s the problem.

“Um...that’s difficult.” I admit. “I’ve made some choices that aren’t agreeable. I’ve got some stuff I need to do on my own.”

“You sound just like Cloud.” Aerith makes a face. “Will you listen to my advice, since he never does?”

“Ha!” Elrena tips her head back, laughter spilling from her lips. “You really don’t know Rueki, she’s not good at taking advice.”

“Yeah, you could tell that just by looking at her.” Reno winks at me. “You don’t put that much red into your hair and make otherwise good choices.”

“Oh, har har I know yours isn’t natural, your eyebrows don’t match.” I stick out my tongue. Reno sticks an elbow into my side, immediately familiar. My skin sizzles. It would be so easy to pretend he’s Lea, to close my eyes and spend lifetimes ignoring the glaring differences. 

“You said it was fine.” Reno reminds Rude, who shrugs, silent but smirking.

“Well look,” Aerith begins. “Alienating people doesn’t win your battles. It takes away your incentive. Cid adores you, it’s not a bad thing to go back home and agree to disagree. Who you are is a series of choices you make, not just one. The ones that really love you will see that.”

I chew on my lips, tracing my finger around the rim of my empty glass. Her words sound pretty, the promise she lays out like flower petals across the surface of my reality, seem sound. But I’ve never been an optimist. It’s hard to think of these choices toward the light starting out as an act of love. All they seem now is a violent bit of self hatred, and that’s the problem, that’s what’s punching my gut, that’s what’s roaring in the back of my mind, buried beneath layers of Luxu’s light. 

“So what’s Cloud even doing here?” I ask quickly, smoothing my hair.

“Well, we don’t know that he’s here for sure. But he’s chasing down some demons from his past.” Aerith explains.

“Yeah, and we sure are delighted to chase him down.” Reno drawls. I catch myself smirking.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re the can’t shut your mouth, has a comment for everything, type?” I ask and Rude chuckles.

“You’re not wrong.” Rude informs me, but Reno leans in, eyes locking onto mine. Once again, I feel that magnetic gravitation toward him, for reasons I’m sure are entirely self indulgent. I don’t belong to anyone, I remind myself. I have no obligation to the man waiting for me in Daybreak Town, maybe tonight I can belong to Reno and this doesn’t have to be about the layers of doubt stacking up inside of me. I could close my eyes and throb under the heat of his touch, under the scorching of his words, under the fire his kisses will ignite on my skin. I set a hand against my stomach, which is starting to twist. Dammit.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re the type that picks fights with everything that moves, uses sarcasm to deflect and thinks being disagreeable is flirting?” Reno teases and Elrena shifts beside me. 

“Have you been sneaking off to meet up?” She asks and Reno barks out a laugh.

“What’d I tell ya? I should do this for a living.” Reno grins, so proud of himself, so smug--so Axel it hurts, why isn’t this feeling any better, why is the world starting to swim in my head, why can’t I quell the pain in my chest-- and Rude chuckles.

“Yes, perhaps you could guess ages at a carnival.” Rude suggests and Reno huffs.

“Thanks a lot, partner.” Reno mutters, so I force a grin to my face. I can overpower this nagging in the back of my head, I can snuff out whatever it is that’s bubbling to the surface. I can make eyes with this stranger and get Lea out of my system, like I know he’s gotten me out.

“It’s okay, you’re pretty cute for a sad clown type.” I laugh, patting Reno’s cheek.

“Real flattering.” Reno chuckles, but he sets my hand down purposefully on the counter and leaves his on top of mine. It’s a soft gesture, I remember the library, I remember Axel’s gentle coaxing until I ended up pressed between him and the bookshelf, I remember that pull and of course this is the problem, how did I think I’d escape this? 

A group of giggling girls filters into the bar, laughing raucously, Reno cocks his head to the side, obvious interest filling his eyes. I withdraw my hand from beneath his, wanting another drink, but hating the way fears are floating to the surface, memories are springing up, bursting like carbonation in my mind.

“If you don’t want to spend the entire evening leaning against the counter, I suggest we get a both.” Rude says, shooting a look to Reno, the only one standing. I cast Elrena a look, this was supposed to be a night to break something beautiful, I’m already wondering if I’m capable of fulfilling that. Her eyes are sparking though, locked to another group.

Roaring laughter fills the bar, spilling right from the darkest edges, where another redheaded man, in an open shirt is loudly reciting the story of purchasing something called a ‘honey girl’.

“Gross.” Aerith mutters. “I’m gonna go get us a booth.” She announces. Instinctually, Reno and Rude turn in her direction, both proverbially grasping at thin air, obvious protective tendencies springing up in both of them. Still, she chirps along to a bored looking host as Elrena rises, pushing herself away from the bar. I’m equal parts horrified and delighted about the idea of leaving.

“Well, they’re obnoxious.” She announces. “Mind if I get a warm up in?” She grins and me, cracking her knuckles. Maybe I should join her, maybe I could use one too, but suddenly my body feels made of lead.

“Just don’t do anything that gets us kicked out of here yet.” I plead, to surely deaf ears as she saunters over to the group. Rude looks down at her from his sunglasses, then to me and Reno.

“Should I cover her?” Rude asks, because he is a lot more sober and a lot better coverage than I would be. 

“Looks like she’s handling her own.” Reno says, which worries me.

“Um, she gets violent fast, will you make sure she doesn’t?” I ask. Rude just nods gruffly to me before slipping over to Elrena, leaving Reno and I alone. Dangerously, deliciously alone.

“So…” He tucks my hair behind my ear  
.  
“So…” I titter back, understanding that this is supposed to be exciting, this is supposed to feel sexy, this is supposed to be enough to satisfy in the ways that Luxu is falling short. But understanding the logic of something is coming to mean so little and I realize I’m starting to wonder what that means for me.

“Don’t suppose you’re game for getting frisky in the bathroom to kill some time?” He asks, shooting me a devil’s grin.

He’s moments too late, it’s already stuck me like lightning. Luxu’s not falling short, I am. Because I don’t belong to something, I’m not someone’s anything. But I want to be. And him not loving me doesn’t change that this all started because I wanted to keep Lea close to my heart. It does, however, change the way I feel about myself.

“Sorry, I’m actually married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The semicohesive Larxene/Demyx theory:
> 
> Okay, so here’s a relatively put together version of the Demyx/Larxene theory.
> 
> First of all, that’s my favorite ship. Like above and beyond any other KH ship, I ship Demyx and Larxene because ‘Between the Silences’ by Admiral Godunov on Fanfiction dot net is possibly enough to inspire anyone to board that ship (plus it’s got some of the best Org 13 characterization in any fic I’ve ever read, but I digress)
> 
> BUT I was totally willing to accept that this ship had no place in my story and wouldn’t happen canonically. Until this fucking bomb got dropped.
> 
> In the Final World in KH 3, we talk to a ton of nameless stars. Only the one has a voice, and IDK, I think it’s been confirmed that it’s Yozora’s girlfriend? I’m not sure, but one of the Nameless stars says this little ditty
> 
> “Whoever said love and hate are two sides of the same coin is a liar. The second our eyes would meet, we were at each others' throats, every time. The idea of us as friends is laughable. I'm finally on my own here, and what a relief! Just...not as big a relief as I'd thought. It's weird. Something's just...missing. Ugh, is that how this works? Did I keep going back for another fight just so we could spend the time together? Maybe it's not as simple as "like" or "hate." The heart's a complex thing. Wonder if he feels this lonely too... Takes two to have a fight, after all."
> 
> My first thoughts upon reading this were ‘huh, this sounds tonally JUST like Larxene’, and then I started putting pieces together.
> 
> Larxene is along for the ride with someone, it’s implied to be Marluxia, but to be honest, we know Elrena and Lauriam do not know each other very well right now in Union Cross. Other than that though, we don't know anything else about Elrena's life. Who her off screen friends are, what the relationships in her life are like, if she absolutely loathes someone, or anything other than the fact that the tone of this nameless star suits her. But then the kh character files dropped this bomb in Larxene’s character file.
> 
> (Translations courtesy of goldpanner on kh insider)
> 
> “But, hm—a heart is such a wishy-washy concept to begin with. You have to be pretty shady to be researching something like that in the first place! It's beyond me. I can't stand know-it-alls in white coats. Not fond of condescending jerks, either. Not a fan of guys who hide one eye. The eyes speak volumes, as they say. I also hate macho muscle-heads! And I hate beardos! They give me chills. Speaking of beardos, I'm not that into con artists either. Don't like the quiet type who swing spears, and I really hate the noisy type who play instruments.
> 
> Huh? Well, yeah, I was talking about things I hate—love and hate come from similar places? You're hilarious. Hey, let's see then. Things I like… What do I like—oh look, I don't like anything. I hate everything. So don't go getting any funny ideas about my hatred coming from "special feelings" or anything. I'm only out for number one. Sorry you got used.
> 
> Ugh. Not having a heart is way more fun. You can just go about your day without developing special feelings for randos.”
> 
> Now that's a lot to work with and obviously speculation can be done as to whether or not to take these character files as canon, BUT everything else is hate other than the noisy you're who play instruments. She REALLY hates those. Now that could possibly be a stretch but I think there's something to say about Demyx being the member she seems to hate most and the repetition of love and hate being so obvious. There's also the theme of elements that Nomura loves to use (land, sky and sea specifically but why not the lightning chasing the rain).
> 
> And, if that wasn't enough for you, maybe the fact that these two are obsessed with each other is. Cuz they are. In Days, both Larxene and Demyx mention how much they hate each other, her calling him lazy out of nowhere, him announcing to Roxas that he's glad she's gone Cuz she sucked, these two have the love /hate duality down. And let's not forget, the only time someone in Kh makes a point to call the other attractive or not is when Larxene tells Demyx, while she's listing his flaws, in the Keyblade Graveyard, she tells him he's not attractive. Like okay girl, calm down or someone might think you're protesting too much 
> 
> And that's it, that's all. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.


	41. Chapter 41

XL.

I’m two bummed cigarettes from Reno in, I’m still unsure if I even want to be smoking, but Aerith is rocking back on her heels, waiting patiently as the host escorts a group of half conscious, old men out of the bar. The place is already a lot rowdier than when we came in, Elrena’s still screaming at the redhead and his group of friends across the room and Rude’s presence seems to be the only thing deterring them from hitting a girl. 

An existential crisis, manifested is me sitting at a bar, an untouched drink and a man who looks too much like my husband, beside me. 

“By the way. I wasn’t trying to make things weird. I legitimately thought you were down.” Reno tells me, in an offhand sort of way, after a lavish tale about fighting something particularly smarmy called a doomrat. 

I take a drag of the cigarette, he does the same, but I make a face at the repulsive taste curling on my tongue. How Del is addicted to these, I don’t understand. But then again, I try on vices like new clothes and shuck them all off, in favor of having nervous breakdowns. 

“Nah, don’t worry.” I shake my head. “I was. But… I guess someone being over me doesn’t mean I’m over them.” Even though the only reason I’m standing here is because l was holding onto hope with white knuckles. It was one thing for Lea to hate me, but it’s a bitter pill, the sinking realization that I’m becoming a chapter closed in the books of those I love. 

How do I take responsibility for this, and how do I fuse the motivations when I still want the realm bathed in light? If this all started out to keep the ones I love close, what does it even mean if it drives them away, if they all take steps away from the monsters and I become one.

“Sorry.” I chew my lips. “You don’t know me, I’m kinda drunk.” Shame drunk though, so it’s all oversharing and clumsy confessions, minus the delicious mania that accompanied cackling on the rooftop with Kairi. 

Kairi. Another chapter closing, I look over to Aerith, who waves at me with a full lipped smile and think that in a few years time, this is going to be my best friend, and am I going to be in the dust like Yuffie or on her team like Tifa? 

If this is all supposed to sparkle, when do my friends forgive me? 

Reno’s hand closes around the glass in my hand and he takes it from me.

“Can we get a water?” Reno asks the barkeep, who nods dutifully. “Yo, I get it.” Reno tells me and I lift an eyebrow. “Nothing to lose and all.” 

“Do you think rock bottom’s a solid foundation to build a home on? Asking for a friend?” I make a face and Reno chuckles. I like the sound.

“I think I sure ain’t the guy you should take advice from.” He assures me, I crack a smile, taking a drag of the cigarette between my fingers as I lean into the bartop. “Are you even inhaling?” He asks me, I smile.

“I don’t think I really know how to.” I admit and he cackles, loud enough that both Elrena and Rude turn to us and my skin goes blotchy, both from the alcohol and the way he lights up the room. Like smoke, like fire, like a flurry of dancing--

Goddammit.

“You look remarkably like my husband.”

“No one looks like me.” Reno counters, waving his hand.

“If I showed you a picture, you’d have a heart attack.” I explain to him. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Reno’s still not convinced, but I don’t think I want to convince him, or even impress him. I think being beside him is equal parts cathartic and toxic and if I could just stop with the constant switch in my emotions--there’s no gauge, it’s on or off, I’m hot or cold, I’m drowning or flying, sliding right past the middle as though it’s made of air and is only an illusion-- maybe I could hold a sentient conversation. 

“I didn’t need your help back there and I won’t need it if I need to remind them to shut the fuck up later, calm down.” Elrena rolls her eyes, approaching Reno and I as she shrugs Rude off. Her interaction was clearly just a warning shot, knowing her she’s not half satisfied with the punishment Rude stopped her from issuing. “Since when do you smoke?” She asks me. Our eyes lock and her face grows serious. “Fuck. You really can’t handle your liquor. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you don’t cry over your ex until after you puke?”

“I’m not crying, I’m not gonna puke.” I make a face, ashing Reno’s cigarette in the tray in front of us. Pointedly, I pick up my glass of water and take a long drink from it.

“Who’s puking?” Aerith’s voice sounds off beside me. She links her arms behind her back and nods toward a booth in the corner that looks dangerously sticky, but must be available for us.

“Why did we have to come here again?” Reno groans. “There are plenty cleaner shitholes on the plate.”

“Something about a real Wall Market experience.” Rude murmurs. 

“I wasn’t old enough to come drink here last time I lived here. And besides, Tifa worked at a bar when we lived here, I wasn’t going to buy drinks when my girlfriend was doling them out for free.” Aerith winks.

“I thought Yuffie said you were with Cloud?” I ask, struggling to remember. Aerith giggles and shakes her head.

“No, I like to tease Cloud. He gets absolutely mortified.” She admits, looking so nostalgic for the person she’s chasing. It’s a bit too familiar for me. 

“So you’re gonna have to tell me where you’re from, cuz I thought this one came shooting down from some sorta asteroid.” Reno points a thumb at Aerith as we all slide into the booth. She giggles under her breath.

“Gummi Ship.” She whispers to Elrena and I, conspiratorially.

“And if I’m being frank, I had you pegged as an upper cruster and you as some sorta scrappy thing that grew up in the orphanage of the Sector 5 slums.” Reno points at first to Elrena and then to me and we exchange looks, smirking.

“Are we supposed to know what any of that means?” She asks, more me than him.

“It means he thought Elrena was more upper class and Rueki looked like she grew up poor, in an orphanage.” Aerith explains. Elrena and I meet eyes again and grin.

“Well, he’s not wrong.” She replies and Reno beams.

“I reiterate, you could guess weights at a carnival.” Rude offers, Reno flashes him his middle finger. A server walks straight by us, Elrena frowns down at the nearly empty glass she brought with her from the bar.

“What’s an avalanche? You mentioned them a couple times.” I ask.

“Eco terrorist bullshit group.” Reno grumbles.

“A group trying to save the planet.” Aerith counters. 

“Going about it in ways that are a colossal pain in my ass.” Reno complains. 

“Sometimes good people have to do difficult things to make a difference.” Aerith shrugs, blithe and clearly over this conversation.

“Excuse me!” Elrena calls to another server, who flat out ignores her to go talk to the bumblebee girl, who’s still over with the dude at the other side of the bar. “Shit service.”

“That’s Wall Market.” Rude explains.

“Don’t say we never gave you the real Wall Market experience, sweetness.” Reno reaches over me to pat Aerith’s shoulder as he fishes the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket again.

“Hello?” Elrena complains, trying to catch the attention of another server who is clearly more interested in taking care of regulars than us.

“Might be our fault.” Rude murmurs.

“Nah.” Reno waves a hand. “Eh, maybe. Like I said, we could’ve found a much better place to knock back drinks at, on the plate.”

“Why would it be your fault?” Elrena asks.

“Because Reno and Rude are the reason I discovered good people sometimes do bad things.” Aerith beams.

“Yo, sweetness, you don’t get off the ground floor just to crawl back. You beat your consciousness to a pulp enough times and it shuts right the fuck up.” Reno replies, Rude nods gruffly. 

“Okay, this is ridiculous, I’m getting a drink one way or another.” Elrena huffs, nudging Aerith’s hip. Both she and Rude slide out of the booth, Elrena does too, and goes marching over to the bar.

“That one stabs as a warning, yeah?” Reno asks. Aerith and Rude slide back in.

“I mean, me too.” I admit. Aerith laughs, flashing me a smile.

“I have seen you with Kairi, you’re a lot softer than you pretend to be.” She pokes at my cheeks. 

“That’s the sort of thing a well trained stranger could see.” Rude nods. 

“You’ve just got ‘do gooder’ written all over you, angel.” Reno tells me. “Your friend could’ve been Avalanche. She’s got that all costs air about her. But you? Definitely not. There was a second I thought you might’ve been a sympathizer, but you can’t stomach destruction for the greater good, can you? Wouldn’t be able to empathize with less than savory methods.”

My eyes fall onto Reno’s mouth, there’s a gentle irony in how he’d have had me pegged...a year ago. An alcoholic stupor settles into my head, why did I deny this man’s offer to indulge the worst parts of myself?

The mark on my hip screeches in response, my brow comes together, my face feels tingly. Right. Because I love someone. It’s hard to remember in the veil over my eyes the booze has created, but I take another drink of my water and think of emerald eyes and tattoos beneath them, long since gone.

Lea’s tired of me. Lea has washed his hands of how frustrating I am, maybe one day I can just be happy that he’s happy. Maybe one day these choices I’m making, he can amount to a water under the bridge between us. But I remember thinking it was noble to hold out as long as I loved him. Until the moment comes that I wish Lea was a memory, won’t it be sweet to say I made minimal mistakes in the time we were apart? Wouldn’t it be nice to wash away the problematic nature of our separation away and just…

Be.

Shutting my friends out to follow what I believe feels exactly as horrid as ignoring my destiny to keep them close. 

“I’m not quite so noble.” I admit to Reno, cracking a smile. “I can take it on the chin if the ends justify the means.” I assure him.

“How do you justify that, then?” He lifts a dark brow.

“By trying to sort through what needs to be done to pay off my moral debt. Conformity isn’t going to fix the fact that I’m emotionally bankrupt.” I admit.

“And anarchy ain’t gonna pay your bills, sweetness.” He informs me, drawing in close enough where I can feel the heat radiating off of him. It’s not nearly enough.

“No it isn’t.” I agree. “Just means I’ve gotta work my ass off to get into a position where I have enough pull to not take unreasonable orders.”

“And how are you gonna do that, clinging to what’s good?” He asks.

“By fucking my way to the top?” I joke, batting my eyes. Reno chuckles, an actual smile twisting at the edges of his lips. I’m more caught up in them than I want to be, but each time my eyes flick up to the blue ones dangerously close to me, emerald green strikes me like a bolt of lightning. My skin tingles, it sparks. Reno’s eyes fly to my hands and I lurch back, shaking them out. Aerith and Rude look up from the conversation they were previously locked in, I shake my head. “It’s just a thing I do, sorry.” I admit, rubbing my palms across the fabric of my dress, like this will somehow swipe away the latent magic that surges inside of me.

“Well, are you alright?” Aerith asks, reaching over to grab my hands off my dress, unflinching, unhalting. My heart skips a beat, I almost yank my hands away but I realize I appreciate how soft and tender her skin is against mine. My heart flutters, her eyes meet mine and she offers a gentle smile.

“Yeah, it doesn’t hurt me.” No one’s asked me that. Because everyone I love has the good sense to assume I’m strong. Not weak, not sad, not empty.

I know, consciously, in the logical part of my brain that Lea did not think I was physically weak, it was my resolve, my emotions that he was concerned about. Maybe rightfully so, because Aerith’s hands in mine and the last of the sunlight filtering into the windows have me fluttering again. 

What did I have to tell myself to get through? Is there any way to bridge a gap between myself and those I love? Maybe crawling back to Lea isn’t possible, maybe it wouldn’t even be fair to call him and apologize, maybe that’s just me trying to absolve my guilt. But maybe there’s someone I should call when I’m not nine kinds of buzzing. Maybe it doesn’t have to be as extreme as war or peace in their personal lives, maybe I can commit to actually properly responding to my friends and not anxiously staring down at messages that I’m too flustered to know how to respond to. 

The least I could do is get better at responding to Kairi, who loves me when she very well shouldn’t.

Reno and Rude are making eye contact, a clatter sounds off from across the bar.

“Are you seriously still trying me?” Elrena snaps at one of the douches she was dealing with earlier. Not Red, but a more grizzled looking guy around the same age. He plants a hand beside her head, leans in and she kisses his face with her fist. 

“You mouthy little cunt!” He snaps at her, I flash the others an apologetic look. The group of douches starts over in her direction, so I bump Reno’s hip.

“I think that’s my cue.” I admit, and Reno, to his credit, does slide out of the booth.

“She’s handling herself really well.” Aerith’s eyes flash, and unsurprisingly, Elrena is, indeed, handling herself like a champ. The first guy, the grizzly one is laid out on the floor and she’s successfully kicked Red onto his ass. But there’s three more and--

“I mean, what are friends for though?” I ask, shrugging. “Can’t have her giving me another one of these.” I tap my face. Rude clears his throat, Reno’s eyes are saucers.

“With friends like those, who needs enemies.” Rude more states than asks. I grin.

“I like to interchange them. More fun that way.” And with that, I slide out of the booth, kick my heels off and go sailing across the sticky floor. Elrena’s dipping below one douche’s fist, I leap above her and take the man to the ground in a flying triangle.

“Watch out!” She demands.

“Sorry.” I tell her.

“Hey!” The barkeep protests. “Get the fuck out!”

“Sure.” I agree, putting an elbow into the face of the man beneath me.

“In a second.” Elrena waves a hand and roundhouse kicks one of the douche brigade in the chest.

“I said get out!” The barkeep pulls a shotgun from behind the wall, aims it at the ceiling and at the last moment, his inexperience shows. The bumblebee woman gasps from across the room, her heels clatter on the floor as she takes off for the door and this throws the bartender just enough that his aim falters and the bullet is sailing right toward me and Elrena. 

A metallic rod deflects the bullet with the same vibrant sizzle my skin was capable of. Reno huffs.

Rude’s fist makes contact with one man’s face, Aerith smacks the other over the head with a chair, so hard her shoulders heave.

“I just wanted a nice night out.” Aerith gripes.

“Yeah, those don’t happen in Wall Market.” Reno grabs my arm and promptly, we all start sprinting for the door.

We don’t stop until we reach a playground at the edge of town and all collapse into fits of laughter.

“I owe you a drink.” I assure Aerith, who is still giggling wildly.

“You sure do, but that was fun.”

\--

My eyes sting, dry and tired; my head hurts.

If this is how I feel after guzzling water all night, I don’t want to know how bad I’d feel if I didn’t. 

Morning sun trickles into the floor to ceiling windows, several floors in the castle above my room.

I knock on a door, daunting and massive now, a voice in the back of my head nags that I hate this about myself. The insecurity isn’t pretty, feeling every bit of my stature like a reminder of my shortcomings tastes worse than bile. 

Luxu doesn’t answer, but I let myself in anyway, pushing my freshly washed and brushed hair behind my back. Unsurprisingly, he’s awake, propped up on his pillow, arms folded behind his head, gaze trained through one of the large windows in his room. He doesn’t turn to look at me, but there’s a staggering in his breath that tells me he’s aware of my presence. I latch the door behind me and press my palms against it, anchoring myself in ways I need but constantly have trouble with. I watch the line of his chest sloping into his taut stomach and think of how nice it would be to climb into something familiar, something who will give me at least half of what I want. He won’t hold me gently, he won’t toy with my hair and settle into the gentle rhythm that comes after the crescendo of a familiar argument.

Loving Lea is still what matters most.

“You here for your light? Or are you trying to do the breakup and makeup thing?” He asks me, tone purposely blase, but I think I realize I know him better than that by now. He wouldn’t even be wasting his words on someone as troublesome as me if there wasn’t the frustratingly bright glint of hope in his chest. In my own, it’s white hot, to the point where it stings and aches, palpitating like an infection beneath my ribs. 

“You were right.” I break my silence and now he stirs, shifting over just onto his side so I can look at a face that spent time between my hands and loathe myself for it.

I did like him, I think. It’s so hard to trust my thoughts when there’s enough static beneath them to create sound all its own. 

“C’mere, squirt.” He urges. I make a face, probably strained and hurt.

“You were trying to love me, you’d been upfront about that since the beginning. I don’t know why I thought keeping you at an arm's length could work.” I shake my head, feeling the dampness of my hair against my cheeks, a reminder of the tears that clung to the baby hairs by my temples last night. 

“So what’s with the face? I’m not a mind reader.” Impatience creeps into his voice, but it’s probably because his eyes are shining as bright as the sun.

“Cuz you were right about me having hang ups. Because of Lea.” I admit, keeping my eyes forcibly open, keeping myself from hiding from my own treacherous mouth. I watch the light in his eyes go dim. He’s the old man in the throne room again, praying someone will do something to keep him entertained. 

“Could you just say you’re over him?” He grasps at straws and I’m giving him nothing.

“I’m sorry.” I chew on my lips, eyes finding his. We hold each other’s stare for a minute, then he rolls over onto his back and I let him put his walls up, because I have no business trying to cross them.

“Is this just a you need time thing?” He asks, and I hate that I hear the ache in his voice and remember his stories of what seemed like endless waiting. Of looking at me and loving me deeply, intently, in whichever way I grew, however he could. I wish I could tell him a hard, resounding yes.

“I don’t know.” I admit. “Does anyone know, really, about being someone’s soulmate? Elrena can’t seem to move on from Emyd.” 

“Well you’re not Elrena.” He reminds me.

“I can’t give you an answer, Luxu.” I want to, I want to promise him in a matter of months, green eyes and red hair won’t be tantalizing and I won’t chase Lea in beautiful strangers, or stave off dreams of him by letting Luxu nestle beneath my skin. There’s a fraction of a hope that Lea’s aching too, that he’s with Skuld, feeling the same deep longing that I do, and not for the person he’s supposed to be settling into. 

This was an act of love. Just because I want the light as bad as I know my friends need it, doesn’t change anything. It’s sad that for however long, I forgot this.

He taps his hand against the side of the bed, heaves a sigh and waves a hand at me.

“Come get your light, and get out of my hair.” He orders, so I walk over, finally, listening to the sound of my heels clicking against his floor. I sink down beside him, he pushes himself fully up, the air charging when once again, our eyes meet.

It’s too bad I’ve already known a wildfire, this spark could be everything.

His hand traces my cheekbone, sad, candid.

“You at least down for some breakup sex?” He asks and I smile, laughter barely a simmer in my throat.

“I think that’d be bad for both of us.” I admit.

“You growing up is hellishly inconvenient for me.” He sighs, but against my cheek, light blossoms, my eyes roll back, and relief so sharp, it feels like a blade to my heart, punctures me. I come down and my head and hair spill onto his shoulder, but he doesn’t pat me, doesn’t soothe me. He just waits, with endless patience, until I force myself up.

“For me too.” I confess. But there’s no more right words to say.

“Can’t believe you woke me up for all this.” Luxu teases, though we both knew he’d be awake. His hands fall away from me, he sinks back into bed and I rise simultaneously. 

The clacking of my heels keeps me perfect company until I shut his door behind me. 

A door creeks as I enter the hall, and my eyes find a pair of gold ones. In the flush of light magic radiating through me, panic doesn’t have quite a proper grip on my tendons. 

He’s the only one I’d expect hell from this morning, but when Vanitas stares over at me, his eyes swim in their sockets. His face glows, he’s warm and flushed looking, but he looks gaunter than ever, like half a person, a phantom of the boy who cornered me in Radiant Garden. 

I can see his heart in my mind’s eye, crystalized, surrounded and safe behind the walls of something that shines. The poor thing is cold and shivering, but the darkness around the edges starts to devour that crystal rapidly, and though his heart palpitates, anticipating the blackness, I realized how exposed it will be without the crystal. He’s so vulnerable, unnaturally so, but he’s numb to it. 

I swallow dryly. 

“I really don’t want fight this morning. Too early.” He rolls his eyes, but lacks conviction and I think this might be the first time in his entire life that he hasn’t been in the mood to argue.

“Neither do I.” I agree. “Are you heading back to the floor our rooms are on? We could walk together if you don’t mind the company.” I realize I hope he doesn’t, because my anxiety is picking up quicker than it normally does after a hit from Luxu. If that’s what Vanitas’ heart looks like, then how long until mine is well on the way?

He just grunts at me and shrugs and I have to remind myself that reaching out to squeeze his hand will only get me punched. 

So we walk silently toward the staircase, at which point I can’t keep my mouth shut any longer.

“Can I ask you something without you getting pissed?” I ask. He snorts, again it sounds so half hearted. 

“Probably not.” He admits.

“Okay, I’m just gonna ask anyway.” I wave my hands. “You’re being given light, aren’t you?”

“You already know the answer to that, you’re nosy as hell.” He rolls his eyes. “Can keep your hands off other people’s hearts.”

“Yours especially.” I admit. “It’s loud.” Like it wants to be heard, but I don’t voice that. 

“You’re getting spoonfed it too though, so what’s the problem?” He asks.

“My heart’s so black I can’t conjure light corridors, though. You can.” I remind him. He just shrugs, unmotivated, uncaring.

“I’ve been getting funneled the stuff since Xigbar found me and woke me up. I’m surprised the Master held off so long with you.” He mutters, my brow comes together.

“Luxu said you’d been only getting it a little longer than me.” Does that mean there’s hope? Does that mean before my heart reaches the shivering, trembling edge the way his has, that the realm will be bathed in so much light, I don’t need regular doses of it?

“Xigbar lies to you, and pretty fucking often in case you were too stupid to figure it out.” He spits. My mouth twists, Vanitas really has nothing to gain by telling me that. I don’t doubt him, but I used a man who has been nothing but hopeful for me, and in exchange, I was force fed nonsense. One might or might not be worse than the other, but I think I want to be bigger than where I house my blame. Especially when nurturing hatred and divorcing love is how I dragged myself here. “My heart was just too dark. Doesn’t fit into a world made of light. I get twice daily doses to function. At least that’s what Gula says, I think it makes him feel better about being such a fucking idiot.” He rolls his eyes. I crack a small smile.

“And here I was, thinking I was the dumbest person in the realm.” I muse. 

“No, he’s dumber than you.” Vanitas is cheeky. I kinda like it, I think he does too and for once isn’t trying to shuck off the best parts of himself. “I think they think if they keep getting me high on the stuff that eventually all of the darkness will be burned out of me. Or maybe they think it keeps me tame. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, any of it. I’m still a monster and instead of having a heart full of light, the darkness just destroys me when the high fades out. You already know, though. It’s always written all over your face, whatever you’re feeling.” He says it with enough jealousy lacing his tone, that I wonder if that’s what he’s aiming for. Is he thinking that if he projects enough, it’ll count as emotional honesty? I don’t know, but my hangover is certainly not just physical anymore. 

“I’m pretty bad at controlling it, I guess. I used to think of myself as like...logical and cynical. My friends thought I was kind of cold. I guess it’s hard to be emotive when nothing is happening in life, but I think I miss being someone logical and cynical. I don’t feel like that’s me at all anymore.” I explain.

“I hate change, too.” Vanitas mutters. “I’m pissed that the old man isn’t around anymore. I think that makes me a bigger idiot than you, sometimes.”

We’re standing in the middle of the stairwell and I can’t help it. I set a gentle hand on his arm. He looks at me again and I see Ven and Roxas and Sora and Xion just in the eyes, so I close the distance, very slowly, and wrap my arms around him. I’m so much smaller than him, I realize. I think he does too, because he doesn’t hold me back, but he doesn’t pull away. Just kind of stands there like he’s never been held before. He might not have.

“You’re a very touchy person.” He mumbles.

“Sorry.” I mumble. “I just don’t think you’re an idiot at all. I miss Isa, I get it.”

“Well that just makes both of us stupid.” He mumbles. “Why?” Like if I give him the answer he’ll be able to figure it out in himself. I think Vanitas’ issue lies more in protection of his abuser than mine does, but I guess I don’t know. 

“I can just see where he was coming from now, and it makes me want to ask him what to do. It makes me trust him. Wanting something so bad, it didn’t matter what he had to walk away from, how dirty his hands had to get. And what he did to me...I’d do it to Skuld. I wouldn’t even feel bad about it.” I drag my teeth across my lower lip, feeling immediately dirty at the confession.

We’re both quiet for a long minute, I pull away and we start back down the stairs, the footfalls echoing like drum beats, puncturing both of our heads.

“Can you tell me what it felt like?” He asks. “Xehanort dying?”

I wish I could give a better answer.

“Unsatisfying. For a second, just a second, I was happy that I broke him. But Kairi didn’t come back, the war wasn’t undone, none of my scars disappeared, I didn’t wake up in my bed in Cid’s house to find I grew up normal and never lost my world to darkness. And then, feeling powerful meant nothing.” I explain.

We just look at each other, standing now on opposite sides of the landing, but closer at the heart than we’ve ever been. I want to hold him again, just because I think he’s the only one who gets it.

But he opens the door to our floor and casts me this unreadable, tense look.

“This whole...everything… it never happened.” He tells me. “I only talked to you cuz I’m high, I only let you touch me because I’m too squeaky clean to fight back. I don’t fucking like you.”

I wonder which one of us he’s trying to fool.


	42. Chapter 42

XLI.

Motunui is stifling. Hot like radiation, palpitating in heady, intoxicating waves that remind me of moments too soft. Sweetness tucked aside and saved for a rainy day. 

Dragging Axel into the ocean with me, sitting on the shore with Kairi. Moments where I was a princess and where I was happy and moments like these, when I can hardly breathe, are at war and I'm the battleground.

I drag my heel across the sand and tell myself that it's just the darkness. That if I could travel by light, it wouldn't feel like this. It's only a matter of time until these worries are memories, until that future is reclaimed by my own hands. 

It doesn't help that my target, my princess isn't in sight. It doesn't help that words of women I admire sing sweetly at the edges of my mind. Anna assuring me that my loved ones will forgive me, Aerith insisting that going at things alone burns out my motivation, Nani smiling with careworn eyes, deciding that truly caring for her sister isn't so terribly thankless.

I push sweat slickened bangs behind my ear, pull the hair tie off my wrist and twist my locks into a sloppy bun.

It doesn’t help that my phone seems to carry new weight in the pocket of my belt. I could unblock Lea but then what? I could call Roxas or Amaya or Del or Kairi, but then what? The practicalities of the situation fail me each and every time, and within seconds, I’m sinking down into the sand, head in my hands, contemplating just burying myself in it.

What’s the good in having an epiphany if nothing changes externally? 

“Whoa!” Someone cries out and I push myself up, sputtering back as a boat docks itself at the edge of the beach. “Omigosh, are you alright, I saw you sitting there and was worried that you--you!”

Well, here’s my princess.

The chief’s daughter, Moana if I remember correctly, is staring at me with a fire in her eyes and a hand on her hip. One foot anchors her to land, the other rests on her boat, like any second she’ll be just out of my reach.

“Hey.” I trail off. “So you remember me.” This is either going to be delightful or catastrophic. Will she remember Axel, Roxas and I ditching her island’s problems, or killing the Heartless that plagued it?

“The friendly neighborhood darkness exterminator. You wanted to help me with the fish problem on my island, but your friend with the red hair wouldn’t let you.” She recalls. Well, thank Twilight I met her sometime before my best intentions made me the worst enemies. “Our fish problem got worse. The crops died, but now I’m on the job.” She stabs a thumb at her chest. I smile at her. I really do like most Princesses of Heart that I meet.

“Good.” I nod. “How’s it going?”

“Not great.” She admits. She fishes around and finds a green rock. Or maybe it’s a gemstone, it’s pretty, whatever it is. “This is the heart of the goddess Te Fiti. I have to restore it to restore life to the island. But in order to do that, I have to get past Te Ka. I was traveling with a demi god but…” She chews her lip. “It doesn’t matter. I’m still on it. I’m still going to restore the heart of the goddess, for the good of my island. I’ll just have to be quick or… Or you can come with me!” Her eyes light up.

“Me?” I ask, though I’m already calculating the situation in my head, and I think that this goes well for me regardless.

Pragmatism isn’t where this started. This isn’t going to be another Rapunzel situation, I tell my hands that start to tremble so bad I link them behind my back.

“You were strong! And fast, and you did some magical thing!” She reminds me. “When that monster came out of the sea, you exterminated darkness, this is right up your alley!” She’s not wrong, it is. Especially now.

“Sure.” I agree, smile pushing up the edges of my lips. It’s not gonna be like Rapunzel, because I’m giving Moana something she wants, and in return, she’s not going to tell me no, she couldn’t possibly. I’m still going to be a good person.

Growth is a ledge in my mind, not far from where I fell, not close to the light, but not quite in the darkness. I’m clinging to it for dear life. This started in love, this started with nobility. With some effort I can get back there.

“Great!” She cheers, but falters, looking at me with a lifted eyebrow. “But you want something from me.” she speculates.

“I have a proposal for you, you just need to hear me out.” And if you say no, I’ll pry the light straight out of your heart, like I’m extracting an organ. No, no, no it won’t come to that. I’m not defaulting to what’s easy, just because the rest of this journey has been fucking hard. “We can do it while we sail.”

“What kind of proposal?” She lifts an eyebrow.

“I need you to help save your world from destruction. Not too different than what you’re doing now.” I confess. She cocks her head to the side, long wavy hair spilling forward.

“Alright, let’s go. You explain on the way.” She agrees.

\--

“That’s all?” Moana asks me as we press forward, her directing the ship--wayfinding as she calls it, which I find to be ironic as all hell-- toward what appear to be mountains. The chief’s daughter talks a mile a minute, as though if she breathes for even a second, someone will silence her. She talks about her island’s famine, about her father holding her back, she clumsily ushers us through introductions and tells me about her first failed attempt to return the heart, alongside a demigod named Maui. 

But for all her chatter, she’s just as equal to hear me out, listening with a far off, intense expression.

“That’s it.” I nod at her, drawing a knee into my chest from where I sit.

“Then of course you can have my light. For Motunui, I’d do anything.” She agrees, adjusting the ropes to push us forward. I won’t even begin to pretend I understand the near witchcraft her hands are capable of on the sails.

At least I can steer a Gummi Ship. Seems about the only thing I ever feel confident in.

“Can I ask you something?” I blurt, wishing I didn’t have to seek advice from anyone, but glad I have a stranger I can just disappear from to consult. Why is vulnerability so much easier when I’m ten feet away from the person I’m connecting with, why does the thought of my friends and the people that truly know me, make me so nauseous? “How did you know this was the right choice? Your father wanted you to stay on the island, so why didn’t you?”

Moana’s face twists, just a little, but she rights herself, tipping her chin up higher. 

“I don’t know this is the right choice.” She explains. “I don’t really know that there is a right choice, I guess. My father wanted me to be happy where I was, happy filling the role I was born to fill. There isn’t anything wrong with that. I love my island, but I also love the sea. I used to think if I could stay away from it, I could ignore it’s call. But what I know, in my heart, I need to do… that kind of purpose doesn’t come from the sea. It comes from me.”

“And you trust it? Your heart?” My fingertips ghost over mine. I think I do too, but…

Guilt tastes bitter in my mouth, it dries my tongue and makes me want to tear out my own teeth so they don’t need to bathe in it any longer.

Maybe I trust my heart, maybe I just don’t trust myself to stay the course. I see the endgame, not the avenues I’ll need to take. I see how clean I’ll come out, not how dirty my hands will have to be first. 

I see myself winning, but what do I lose along the way, and how do I stop it?

“Of course.” She nods, perceptive eyes touching me for only a moment before they return to the sea.

“What if your dad doesn’t forgive you for leaving?” I ask. Moana’s face falters, just a little, before a dutiful courage replaces the fear.

“Then I just have to work twice as hard, to show him why I had to do this. My father loves me, I love him. We are who we are. We don’t have to be the thing’s we’ve done. Whether it happens right away or not, I will not fail Motunui. And my father will understand that I had to seek every path to save it.” She steers the ship into an inlet, arms going tense. “We’re here, Rueki. Brace yourself.”

\--

We cut like knives through the waters, intercept a demigod and brave explosions of lava that seared through even my best NullBlaze spell, Moana is good at the helm of a boat and I move waves in ways I didn’t know what I was capable of until I crossed the dark sea with Elsa.

But it’s all to no avail. I’m knocked back.The demigod has lost his weapon, and through the parted sea, Moana relies on one last ditch effort.

“I have crossed the horizon to find you, I know your name.” She sings. “They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you.”

My insides go ice cold. My stomach wrenches, my heart leaps.

“This is not who you are. You know who you are.”

Yes. Yes I do.

\--

“Hey…” Moana’s bare feet pad through the sand. Motunui’s heart is sealed. Te Fiti’s heart has been returned, Maui’s hook is restored and Moana’s family has intercepted her with the type of unending affection that stings my heart and eyes in tandem.

I’m sitting on the shoreline, digging my heels into it, stare on the horizon.

“Hey.” I don’t turn to her but she settles down next to me and beams hugely. 

“Thank you. For everything.” She squeezes my shoulder with surprising firmness. I cock my head to meet her eyes, a conspiratorial smile dancing across my lips. 

“For what? You did everything.” I tease, putting an elbow softly into her side and she laughs, glee brightening her eyes. 

“Okay, but you have magic powers!” She waves her hands in the air.

“I know magic.” I correct. 

“It was amazing, I’m not sure we would have gotten as close as we did to the heart, without you. And my world wouldn’t be safe and protected without you.” She tucks her knees up to her chest, leaning a little closer to the waves. 

“How do you feel?” I ask her. “Without the light?”

“Happy.” She smiles. “I never needed pure light to love my island, to be happy here. And I don’t need it to feel good about what I did.”

“No crippling anxiety? No crushing existential dread that something is going to happen because you feel a little too good?” I raise my eyebrows.

“You….might have an issue with overthinking things. But in a totally respectable and friendly way.” She shoots me an uneasy smile, I bark out a laugh.

“No, I’m a train wreck, you don’t need to sugarcoat it.” I shake my head. “I think this is what happens when you chase something for too long. I left my home months ago. I’m pretty sure everyone hates me, but my job’s not done yet and I’m just… I’m scared if I stop now, things will be as bad for my home as they were before. But if I don’t stop, what am I going home to?” I think the unknown is the most frightening thing there is, plunging into blackess like this. Who knows, maybe I’m just light deficient, maybe I need an extra dosage from Luxu.

“Well, could you go home to check?” She asks and though a tiny light flashes in my chest, it’s comparatively meek. 

“It would be hard.” Because who would want to see me, who isn’t going to grab my arm and beg me to stay away from the Master, who is going to disrespect the call that I know very well is inside of me too? “And I don’t know if it would be a selfish move or not.”

“Would it be worth it?” She tilts her head to the side. I trace the spot my wedding band is missing from.

They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you.

And maybe my wickedest moments truly don’t. Maybe the distance I created out of hurt doesn’t need to remain. Maybe I can’t have my cake and eat it, but maybe it’s not worth it to leave stones unturned and ignore the questions in my head.

Maybe rejection would be better than not knowing at all, the notion seems overly optimistic to me, but dammit all I really think I need to try.

Moana rises, I procure my phone from my pocket.

“If you need a friend, I’ll be just through those trees. Thank you, Rueki.” She squeezes my shoulder one more time, leaving me to stare down at the device in my hands. There are missed calls and texts, but with hands that tremble like leaves in a storm, I ignore them all, find Kairi’s contact and select it.

The phone rings twice before she picks up.

“Hey.” Her voice is quiet, soft. She sounds older. 

“Hi.” I barely croak out.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while.” She says, but it’s not a protest, there’s no guilt trip, she doesn’t sound like she blames me. “I started to worry.” Of course she’s not shaming me, she’s pure to her core. Whether I can come back home or not could be a talk for another day. I just want to hear my best friend tell me she still loves me.

“I think I’ve been having a really hard time.” I confess. There’s soft silence as she takes in the words, the bare naked confession.

“How can I be here for you?” She asks, voice louder now. Loud enough that I wince.

I can’t stay like this, lonely and empty and running on fumes because my body is incapable of producing natural defenses. I’m such a fucking heap. 

“Just talk to me. I miss you.” I murmur.

“Oh, Rueki, I miss you too.” She sputters, like the words can’t fly out of her heart fast enough.

“Can I see you, Kai? I just feel like the world would be better if I could see you…” And I realize I’ve been sweet talking Princesses of Heart, and if she knows this, my request could sound awful. “It can be on your terms, you can bring whoever you want if you don’t trust me, I’d understand, I just want to hug you.”

“Why are you such a doofus? I do trust you, I’ll always trust you! Rueki, just come home. It’s okay, it’s not too late, we can all still talk about things.” And sides are drawn and I know no one will have budged, but her words are the sweetest little promise, hope struggles, weak and sick but not dead inside of me.

“That’s not my home anymore, though.” I shake my head, like she can see me. I’m sure she doesn’t know I know about Skuld and Lea. I’m sure no one knows that I’ve mourned with toxicity as company while they basked in the glory of an uncomplicated love.

“Yes it is! You have no idea how happy it would make so many of us. Axel and I are always talking about how much better things would be if you were home, just come see us. No one’s gonna yell at you or hate you and if they do, then they can leave. This is your home.” She promises me. My heart clenches. My hip burns. 

“Kai…” I whisper. “Lea doesn’t want me home, I know he doesn’t.”

“You mean because of that text you sent him? That doesn’t mean he’s suddenly over you, silly. None of us are, we’re just trying to deal with the fact that you’re not here at our sides. That’s hard on us too. It makes us all feel weird.” She says. 

“No, Kai...I heard um… I heard him talking to Skuld a month or so ago.” I tuck my hair back. I chew my lip. “He said that he wasn’t going to stop living his life because of me, because I was off living mine.”

“I’m sure he said a lot of things to Skuld.” Kairi mumbles. “But he hardly hangs out with her anymore.”

“You don’t need to lie.” I try.

“About what? He, Roxas and Xion mostly hang out with me, Riku and Sora. Things have been weird since you left.” She doesn’t elaborate anymore, but I can calculate in my head why things might be weird. Those who sympathize with me must be coming up empty when it comes to words to exchange with those who don’t.

“I know he’s with Skuld now. It’s okay. I know.” I mumble, though as I say it out loud, I pull away from the phone to suck in a breath and try to blink away tears before they form. 

My heart has hardly processed this. High on light, drunk on Luxu, my mind has been so thoroughly wrapped around any and everything else. It hasn’t stopped the ache from festering and rotting, killing off a part of my heart, infecting my soul. I don’t feel like I can move.

Kairi’s deadly quiet for a long moment and every second she refrains from speaking, all I have to focus on are the tears as they fall hot and heavy down my cheeks, onto my knees, down my neck, onto my chest. Fuck.

“Rueki, he’s not with Skuld… Did she get ahold of you, did she try to tell you that?” Kairi asks.

“Dude, I heard! I overheard them talking whenever ago, about how this was a long time coming and how it felt right and how it was all he wanted and--”

“She’s with Isa, Rueki.” Kairi says, quickly. Suddenly, there’s no air left in the realm. But I breathe deeper than I have in months. The waves become greener, the sky becomes bluer, the sun is beaming and hot and I’m alive.

“No, I heard them.” I protest.

“I don’t know what you heard, but you heard wrong. I know she made a whole deal of asking Lea’s permission before her and Isa became official, like anyone gives a damn, but Rueki...there hasn’t been a day that he hasn’t told me what he wants life to be like when you come home.” Kairi says.

I’m struggling for breath as it shakily floods my lungs. I’m crying even harder now, so hard that there’s no way Kairi can’t hear me. I wipe my face with the back of my hands.

“Lea’s not with Skuld?” I ask. I didn’t hear the whole conversation. What if Lea was giving his blessing, what if the natural progression was Isa going from her savior to her lover, what if Lea was only wishing his friends happiness?

What if the mention of me was just a blip, just Skuld being bad at making small talk?

“No, Rueki, no. Is that what’s holding you back?” She asks. “I can put him on!” She insists, but I shake my head. 

This time, I don’t register that she can’t see me. I don’t register anything other than the deep pull in my gut and the whining inside of me. 

I wave my hand. Blackness appears in front of me, I stagger through, listening to Kairi call my name from the other end of the phone that I haven’t hung up, but not really processing it. I just keep cutting through the dark, through the ink, and finally, when there is breath and light and sun, I’m in the living room of my home in Twilight Town.

Everyone’s gathered, watching a movie. Kairi slips down the stairs, frown creasing her features. Her phone is in one hand, she looks up, sees me and shrieks. Lucidia cries, everyone looks up.

“Omigod!” Del stands. Amaya sobs, Aqua, whose arm is around her waist, suddenly cuts in front of her.

“Sit down!” Amaya demands her.

There are so many pairs of blue eyes, plenty of green, a pair of gold.

It’s like I’m cutting through masses until I find him. Lea’s eyes meet mine, I’m deeply aware of how much older he looks, drawn out, pale, hollow. He stands suddenly. He opens his mouth, clears his throat, tries to say something. I start sobbing again.

“Lea.” I say. He doesn’t respond, just stares at me. “Axel.” I say that name and he dives forward, grasping my face in his hands, nearly pulling my body out of socket. My joints blaze, my insides defrost. Finally. 

“Rueki.” He chokes on my name. “This is happening. You’re here. You’re home.”

“I am.” My eyes don’t dry. My heart hasn’t changed, but I can’t hole up in a castle and avoid the people I love just because we disagree. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, none of this does. I can have him, and the bright shiny future I know I can create. 

Like this though, I can’t see the future, I can’t see the people around us, I only hear the dull roar of voices, like waves lapping the shore, like thunder rolling, like flames crackling. There’s just us. There’s just this, the reason I fight, the reason everything I do has been worth it.

“I’m here. I love you. I’m home.” I breathe. Lea’s mouth finds mine. 

Something pulls at my gut, I struggle for breath. I blink back spots, eyes wide and huge and--

My head hits pillows. Soft, dense and warm. We’re in our bed. He teleported us to our room.

His mouth finds mine and I lose any and all means to protest. He could be the only thing in this realm that exists, and not a part of me would be upset.

“You’re home.” He sighs against my skin. “Rueki, Rueks. You’re home.” Lea sobs, tears spilling down onto my skin. I don’t know if they’re mine or his. I don’t even think it matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of you who guessed Isa/Skuld, good job. You hit it on the head


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo friends, welcome to another chapter! I'm back at work in my state and things have taken off running. So we have this chapter, and then Wednesday's chapter and that will mark the end of this arc! There will be one more arc after this, roughly 20 chapters, and I'm so excited to share them with you!  
But, with work starting back up for me and all of the editing I've done on the last few chapters to really make everything pretty, after this arc, I've decided to take a little break. So I'll post on Wednesday and then the next time you guys will hear from me will be Sunday August 2nd!  
I'm sorry, Cuz you guys all know how bad I feel about breaks, but the further along I get in this, the more I'm seeing the loose ends this arc will need to tie up, and I want it to be some Damn good writing for you guys to look forward to, to everyone who has gotten this far with me (whether you have been with me since the beginning or binge read the series this past week)its been a hell of a ride for all of us, and it deserves a satisfying conclusion

XLII.

I am airy, I am weightless. Coming down from the mountaintops of Lea’s touch adds years onto my life.

This touch gives with no need to take, his kiss restores, without breaking. There’s endless energy in the way he loves me, and if I could, I would stop the world forever in this moment.

There’s no love sweeter than the one so thoroughly missed.

I climb down from on top of him, sweaty, flushed and fluttering, whimpering with elation as I struggle to catch my breath.

He sets a hand on my side and rolls my bare body over, fingertips on my ribs as we look into the stillness of each other’s eyes.

He smells as good as I remember, the sweet musk of smoke lighting up my senses.

“You give me fifteen more minutes, Rukes, and I’ll be good to go again.” He promises, placing a kiss on my forehead. My mouth finds his chest before my head settles onto it and he wraps me in closer.

“Honestly, I could stay just like this, forever.” I promise him, he squeezes me.

“Good, cuz I’m not letting you out of my arms ever again.” He says it with the type of resolution that assures even my most fearful instincts. “This was the worst couple months of my life.” He whispers into my hair.

I’m jolted when I realize I don’t know if I can say the same. Where the vibrancy of his presence has lit my world, his absence has made it go black more times than just this. These aren’t the moments that will fill my head with nightmares until my job is complete, because only my hand stirred the pot.

“I thought the only way to keep us both sane was to put distance between us. It was killing me, seeing your messages, hearing your voice, looking at pictures of you on my phone and knowing that I wasn’t ready to come home to you.” I confess.

“Things have changed though.” He says. 

“Everything has.” I can make this work. I’m resolute in this balancing act. I will keep my goals in one hand and my heart in another and we can sort this out. What could his friends possibly have to say, what could mine possibly do when they’re on different wavelengths, our love held up high the way he wanted it to be for so long. Seperate from the war we’re fighting. This gives new meaning to the term ‘sleeping with the enemy’. I chuckle into his skin. 

I realize I can’t wait to tell Elrena about this. Maybe we’ll figure out a way to restore Emyd’s memories. Maybe my elation can inspire her.

“Can I ask what happened to your face?” His hands stroke gently, exciting the skin of my scalp as they dance through my hair that long since tumbled out of its bun.

“You can, but then I’d have to tell you that Elrena beat me up pretty good before we became friends, and I’m not trying to throw her under the bus like that.” I admit. He shifts in my arms, but exhales on a soft laugh, not quite bubbling up from his chest.

“You made friends with Larxene?” He asks, incredulous. “How did you manage that?”

“I know, it’s impressive, you weren’t even around to shut me up when I was acting foolish.” I grin against his overheated skin. “We just had a lot of stuff in common, more than we realized.”

“Like what?” He strokes my hair.

“Like what?” I raise my eyebrows hard enough to crease my forehead. For a second it strikes me that he’s asking me about the mundanity of my life, but the closer I get to the flames, the more warm my insides become, the more I remember.

“Is it totally sappy that I missed hearing about your day?” Not at all, because I realized I missed the same thing and I recall that Lea was always like this. Even when he was a Nobody and I was the prisoner he was sleeping with, our conversations always punctured through the moments we spent tangled in each other. 

“Yeah. Ew, gross, next thing I know you’ll be telling me you kinda like me.” I make a face and at this, he starts tickling me, sending me into delirium that lurches me back. “Dick!” I swat at his hands and roll onto my back.

“I take it all back, you’re the worst wife ever.” But he’s already readjusted his position so that he can trace circles on my hip. I touch his hair, feeling the gel flaking off between my fingers.

“You wanna know what we both have in common? It’s that we missed our soulmates.” I start to glow, candlelit from within.

“If you try to tell me that Larxene is calling Marluxia her soulmate...and you know this means I’ve got free reign to tease you for being the sappiest human alive, got it memorized?” He taps across my hips, fingers finally lingering on the mark he left. I might be the one more hyper aware of the bond, but he’s got to feel it too, this peace, this unity.

“Not Marluxia. And I’m not being a sap.” I tell him. “You are my actual soulmate. We’re two halves to the same whole. We share a soul, and that right there is physical proof of it.” I nod to where his hands are, lingering on the mark.

Lea goes quiet, his fingers still, but there’s no fear in the abrupt silence, just warm, soothing, assuring afterglow.

“You’re not fucking with me.” He murmurs, voice as soft as his lips, which I’m already aching for again. This, I think, is what Sanae and Joshua meant about the perks of soulmates. The moments Elrena and Emyd never got. These instances of placidity, the sweet way Lea holds me, the fact that every time I look at him it feels like the first time my eyes are drinking him in.

“Not at all. It’s really rare, I guess. But it happens.” I explain.

“And it happened to us.” His reaction is a far cry from mine, he pushes himself up and presses his lips to mine. And I take my time to memorize the instant his lips part and the taste of him on my tongue. We part when we hear footsteps, eyes growing wide. “Goddamn nosey kids.”

“Don’t they know I’m not allowed to leave you arms?” I gripe in return as we leap apart, dressing with sloppy speed. 

“I seriously hope you’re dressed!” Kairi’s voice sounds off, Riku is protesting her name behind her, but I’m clothed and Lea is finishing pulling his shirt over his head as she throws the door open. 

“So you haven’t learned manners while I was gone?” I tease. We close the distance between each other, I nuzzle her shoulders and she squeezes me with every bit of force those skinny arms can muster. Her freckles have faded, too much time spent in a mild world and not the island she once called home.

“My biggest female role model still doesn’t know manners, why should I.” She pinches my arm as we pull apart, I complain loudly, but my gripes are easily silenced by the massive smile that threatens to swallow her face. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

“Well I was right, wasn’t I? Things are better now that I get to see you.” I squeeze her shoulders and watch her upper lip start to flutter, delicate as the wings of a butterfly.

“I tried to reel her in.” Riku’s got a hand in the pockets of his jeans and the same look on his face that I realize I’ve been chasing only now.

Acceptance. I steal a quick kiss to Kairi’s cheek, before she goes prattling over to Lea, worlds proud of herself for being the ‘main influence’ in me coming home. 

“It’s good that you’re home.” He tells me, and a response takes on the weight of led at the tip of my tongue. I realize that home doesn’t have the same implications to me as it does to him. My arrival doesn’t have the same implications to me as maybe anyone else.

They’re convinced I’ve thrown away my intentions, but the fact of the matter is I look at even just the four of us in this room and my resolve grows stronger. Aerith was right, and thinking back, so was Kairi, but on a different front. She’s fighting to keep her life the same, but I’m fighting to preserve the moments like these. Movie nights, bedroom invasions.

“Rueki!” Sora cheers.

“I called dibs on first hug!” Del huffs.

“Yeah right!” Roxas downright cackles, sweeping into the room, shoving right past Riku to scoop me up into his arms and twirl me around. He’s so much taller than me now, hot damn his growth spurt really took him by storm. “You are such a jerk, you’re never leaving again.” He orders, holding me too tight, even when he sets me back down on my feet.

My inability to respond is Del and Sora’s excuse to attack me, arms latching around me as Xion and Amaya exchange smiles in the door. Behind Amaya, Aqua’s holding Lucidia, bouncing her on her hip. Her eye’s find mine. If there was one person I didn’t expect to dread my arrival, it’s her. But her eyes are eerily calm, calculating me like the enemy.

There are so many hugs exchanged as the others filter into the room. Ven and Terra, Naminé and the king, Donald and Goofy, Isa and Skuld finally bring up the rear, he completely brushes past me, setting something cool and heavy in my hand. I look down, eyebrows raised.

“I already have a phone.” I tell him. 

“Funny, you don’t seem to use it.” He counters, though he’s smirking and I’m pretty sure this is him showing love. “Anyhow, it’s mine. You can put your number in there so next time you leave my best friend a vulnerable mess, I can send you video incentive of him in hysterics as motivation to get off your bullshit.” 

“Isa!” Lea protests, face flushing hot and vibrant, but a cool, calculated smirk stretches across my mouth.

“No, no, it’s good. I was actually gonna applaud Isa’s constant journey into learning new slang. It’s so hard to get back into the swing of the trends when you spent your best years choking on Xemnas’ dick.” I pat the blue haired man’s shoulder. The familiarity of our utter abuse acting as a hearth, keeping us both warm.

“Goodness.” The King clears his throat, I cast him an apologetic look. 

“It’s good to see you, Rueki.” Skuld tells me, finally moving in from the doorway. And though she doesn’t reach out to hug me, she pats me curtly on the shoulder, and I’m almost certain it’s all the affection Skuld can muster. “By the way, I wasn’t trying to take your husband, so you know.”

What phenomenal people skills she has.

I choke, eyes flying wide as I look to Kairi.

“How did you have time to blab already?” I accuse.

“It was actually me.” Ven admits, brow coming together. “Some of your thoughts broke through, and the others were curious as to why you finally came back.”

Some of your thoughts broke through, what a dangerously vague statement. My eyes find Naminé’s, immediately she looks away and while I know she knows I have every intention to return to Daybreak Town tonight, I know the others don’t. This conversation would probably look a whole lot different if they did.

This conversation will look a whole lot different when I have to tell them, but in every square inch of my brain, I plead with anyone in the house who might be listening, to let me have this moment. I’ll own up later, I’ll cross that bridge when the affections of those I love have mended me enough to open up room for new wounds. 

“Which is kind of a relief. We hadn’t really heard from you in months.” Roxas explains. “Your heart just...like shut off pretty much after you left.”

“Oh damn, it must be hella hard to not snoop on your friend’s thoughts.” I roll my eyes, thankful to not have my chagrin so utterly on display.

“I told you she was fine. It’s Rueki, if anyone could figure out how to block off all of us, it’s her.” Xion says, but she says block off like it’s a positive thing, like she’s proud of me for it. “The headaches that came when we were all flooding each other’s mind were…” She searches for the words, but Sora’s face says it all.

“Really bad.” He finishes for her.

“Probably the worst pain ever.” Ventus nods

“I’m sorry. I know some of that pain was at my hand. This really wasn’t the storm I intended for any of you to weather.” Naminé explains, twisting her delicate hands.

“Well, I’ve got it managed now. No harm, no foul.” And the last four words, I know she knows hold a double meaning. But her eyes avert from mine again, and I come up empty handed.

She’s really drawing her line in the sand, here.

“Well, now that we’ve all gotten to say hello again, maybe we could cook up some dinner?” Terra suggests.

“And we can all get back to the movie!” Donald adds.

“I’m down for the movie, but let’s just get a pizza or something.” I wave a hand. “These moments are precious.”

Lea’s fingers lace through mine, he nods in agreement. 

“Yeah, they’re worth everything.” 

\--

Lea’s got his arms tight enough around my waist, it’s borderline a chokehold. Kairi’s cheek is pressed into my stomach. The movie’s good, but if I’m being completely honest, the phone in my hand, which I’ve had to silence, is captivating more of my attention than anything else.

Del: So you missed it, Aqua and Amaya are ~official~ now

He sends this to both Amaya and I, and I crack a smile, because Aqua’s arms twined around her upon my arrival, coupled with what Amaya confessed to a much drunker me and Kairi, already helped me figure that out.

‘Congrats, dude. Not gonna say I didn’t see it coming though ;)’

Amaya smiles from across the room, typing out a response, though Aqua is still next to her, their legs linked--and Aqua still hasn’t said two words to me, and I’m not sure I love that type of turnout. 

Amaya: Silly me, thinking your crazy memory would forget the things I told you when you were drunk.

Del: She already knew???? Rueki, why wouldn’t you tell me???????

Del sends about forty five crying emojis, I roll my eyes.

‘I just knew Amaya had a crush was all. You have a big mouth, why do you think I don’t tell you anything?’

Del: Because you’re self righteous and overly ambitious

Amaya: I was going to say impulsive and stubborn 

‘WOW get fucked. Let’s be happy for Amaya and leave it at that, she’s probably the prettiest person Amaya has ever dated.

Del: Dude.

Del: I’m the father of her child.

‘And her and I fooled around when we were teenagers, I don’t know what you want from me, man. Aqua’s still prettier than both of us.’

Del looks down at his phone. His brow comes together, he looks up at me and then at Amaya--who is utterly nonplussed, likely having already told Aqua that the three of us had minimal options and dependency issues when it came to coming of age and that those moments are entirely in the past.

Del: No you didn’t. No way did you guys hook up.

‘Sure’

Amaya: Whatever you say ;P

Del: You’re totally making this up, you’d have told me!!!

‘Okay bro’

Amaya: Lmao, no we wouldn’t have!!!!!

Del is massively pouting now, looking between me and Amaya, having utterly forgotten the movie.

Del: Well was I better? I had to have been better, right? Cuz I have an actual dick.

Now Amaya and I make eye contact, the two of us both biting back laughter, her chewing on her lips, me on my knuckles.

Amaya: Would me saying yes make you feel any better?

Del: I hate you both.

‘Dude, it’s okay. Only a woman knows what a woman wants ;)’

Del: Our friendship has been revoked.

Neither Amaya or I are capable of holding it in anymore. Raucous laughter spills from both of us.

“What’s so funny?” Kairi asks. 

“I will tell you later, because it’s hilarious.” I pat her head, where it’s been jarred by my laughter, but now sits on my hip. 

“You guys suck, I’m getting a beer.” And with that, Del skulks loudly into the kitchen.

\--

“Do you like Daybreak Town?” Ven asks me when Del finally needed a smoke break and the desire for pizza became strong enough that we paused the movie so Riku could call on it. Lea’s moved from beneath me, but Donald, Terra, Goofy, the King and Ven are all still stationed around the living room, none seeming to treat me with the resounding leper quality that I’ve taken on to Naminé and Aqua.

“It’s pretty.” I nod. “It’s lonely. I keep having the strangest dreams too. Like nonstop.”

“Didn’t Sora say you’ve always had some real crazy dreams?” Goofy asks and I smile softly, shocked that he’d remember such a trite thing.

“I have, but nothing like this.” I shake my head. “These aren’t nightmares. It’s just like I’m hearing a conversation between two people and one of them sounds really familiar, but when I wake up, I forget how I knew the voice and I can’t see either of their faces.”

“Master Yen Sid says Daybreak Town is teaming with strange magic. And your empathy link is already a rarity, I bet it’s got something to do with that.” Mickey speculates. 

“Maybe.” I shrug. “I wouldn’t even know whos’ projecting this though.”

“Maybe one of the hearts tied to yours that you didn’t realize. You didn’t know Luxu’s heart was tied to yours until recently.” Terra reminds me and while that’s true, that does make me realize it could very well be the Master or one of the Foretellers projecting, very pointedly into my dreams. For whatever reason, I don’t know. But if all of the Foretellers are connected to the Master, as long as Luxu’s heart lives in me, they all do.

“Regardless, when it’s not ruining my sleep, Daybreak Town’s been seriously helpful for training purposes. I’m actually competent with my Keyblade, I’m using alchemy again and my magic…” I look to Donald with a fire in my eyes. “I used a fifth tier spell!”

“That’s amazing!” Donald praises, seeming to mean it. “Those are really tricky, how did it go?”

“Well…” I chew my lips. “I might have fallen from the sky. And almost got eaten by a tidal. If it weren’t for a magical horse made of water. Yeah, nevermind, this story doesn’t make me look good.” 

“The new ornament you added to your face does that just fine.” Isa tells me as he and Skuld step back into the room.

“Dude.” Lea protests as he comes back from the kitchen with Kairi, carrying an abundance of soft drinks. “I haven’t seen my wife in months, can we use our nice words?”

“Sorry, the new ornament you added to your face does that just fine, my dearest one.” Isa rolls his eyes. My smile stretches from ear to ear.

“I thought we could match, sugarpuff.” The lilt in my voice all but twinkles, Xion giggles as she and Roxas bring in even more soft drinks, she sets one down next to me and I pat the floor beside me, which she settles eagerly into. “Enough about me falling out of the sky, how are you two?” I wave a hand between Xion and Roxas, who settles down beside her, falling into her shoulder like second nature, the two almost breathing as one. It’s cute, I think, watching two hearts that are very nearly almost one. 

“Good, I’m not failing math anymore!” Roxas beams. “Amaya’s really good at it.”

“Amaya’s really good at every subject, don’t let her fool you. She’s the reason Del didn’t drop out of high school.” I inform them as the sliding glass door slams shut.

“I resent that.” Del calls out, I smirk.

“You resemble that?” I ask, then turn back to the two beside me. “What about Hayner, Pence and Olette.”

“We think we want to get a house close to school with them next year. Olette and Pence got accepted early admission into this college across town. And Hayner and I just got in, all we’re waiting for is Roxas’ acceptance letter!” Xion beams, which strikes me as so intensely normal, it’s almost surreal.

“What, you’re not going on to become Keyblade Master’s or anything?” I ask.

“To be honest, it’s kind of just nice to be normal.” Roxas shrugs.

“Both of our first memories were being with Organization XIII, fighting battles. We talked about it, and all of our favorite times were either getting ice cream with you and Axel on the clock tower or spending time with Hayner, Pence and Olette, or going to school and living here.” Xion explains. “And Roxas and I are both about to be eighteen, and it’s not like we won’t help if the realm really, really needs this. But Roxas wants to skateboard and hang out with his friends.”

“And Xion’s super good at science, she wants to work in Even’s lab to further the replica program.” Roxas praises, which turns Xion the same shade of red as Lea’s hair.

“I love it, guys. Seriously.” I smile at both of them, though my mind contemplates a conversation under the stars with a man still so close to my heart, but physically far. Is this really all the realm has to offer me? And if so, is this enough? I used to think what I wanted was peace for myself, but do I, or do I want to see my loved ones at ease while I find yet another way to take on roles to protect them?

I’m good at chasing the nightmares away, will there always be a part of me that needs to?

“I wish more of you could be normal like this.” I call, most pointedly to Kairi, who sticks her tongue out at me.

“Sora and I are both training to become Masters. Aqua’s turning the Land of Departure into a school, we can recruit Keybearers from all worlds to come there and study!” Kairi explains, but in her voice, I just hear another excuse to step into the ring. My eyes find Aqua’s, she barely offers me a second of eye contact before she turns away, but something deep and instinctual is fine with this. This has already proven to be a friendship that can’t withstand the storm, and that’s fine, if she needs that for her sanity, it’s on her. But I contemplate Skuld and how hard I tried to bridge that gap and decide I have finally suffered too much to try to make myself like people that so thoroughly dislike me. 

She wants to create more wielders to step into the battle, she wants to take more children and prepare them against threats they shouldn’t have to prepare for. How cute will it be for her to follow Eraqus’ legacy, how precious when Ven and Terra are at her side, helping her along.

How damn disappointing when the realm I create won’t foster a need for anyone to fight another war. 

“What if this is it and this is the final threat?” I ask. 

“There will always be a Master Xehanort or a Master of Masters, even if not by those names. Peace could be a reality, but to assume it will be the standard is ignorant.” Naminé says, turning my skin cold. My jaw clenches as I look at her, huddled up on a recliner, a pink blanket wrapped like a shall across her shoulders.

“Exactly. The realm should be ready, no one should be stopped from answering a calling to protect.” Aqua says, and bubbling up beside me is a retort that I think I might have to chomp my tongue off not to reiterate. 

My skin crackles, I huff in frustration.

“You two are so much alike.” Skuld looks from me to Isa, brow coming together like the very look on my face brought a sudden realization.

“You’re just now seeing this?” Lea cackles. “They’ve always been this bad.”

“Snide remarks, weirdly depressing sense of optimism, abnormal sleeping schedule.” Skuld lists. “But her lightning’s as hard to control as his...lunar tendencies.” 

“They’ve got the same weird sense of humor. Both go absolutely nuts about protecting people they love.” Lea nods.

“Even their eye color… This is so weird.” Skuld makes a face.

“I know, we’re basically with the same person.” Lea nods. Isa huffs a mighty sigh. 

“Impossible, these ones are.” Isa rolls his eyes, pointing between Lea and Skuld. I crack a smile.

“The worst.” I agree.

“Can’t keep personal things to themselves.” Isa remarks.

“And like they’re both so frustratingly hot.” I roll my eyes, but Isa meets me with a deadpan.

“Every single time, you ruin things. Every time.” He tells me. I set a hand to my heart.

“Oh sweetness, you really think my ratio’s that high?” I ask.

“Undoubtedly, darling. In fact, I would suggest we go outside and take turns beating each other to a pulp, but I wouldn’t want to miss pizza.” Isa smiles.

“Awe, you’re always thinking about the future. Too sweet.” I make a sappy, overly sugary face.

“We are with the same person.” Skuld shakes her head.

\--

“So…” Kairi impatiently taps her thumb on a soda can, eyebrows raised, smiling like a devil at me. Her, me, Lea, Isa, Skuld, Riku and Sora have wrapped ourselves in a semi circle, plates of pizza on our laps or on the ground below us as we sit, her and Sora still politely distant from each other.

“So…” I ask, taking a bite out of my slice, not detaching from the warmth of where I sit between Lea’s legs.

“So are you going to tell me I’m the smartest, coolest best friend ever and that I was right and you should’ve just come home a long time ago?” Kairi prompts, Sora laughs loudly, Lea pats my indignant head.

“I’ll say it for all of us, Kai. Thanks for being this one’s common sense.” Lea grins, swallowing a drink before coming to place a kiss on my temple. 

“I think it’s fine that you were gone.” Skuld admits, and of course she does, I see Kairi bristle immediately. “I mean, you should’ve just taken the advice at hand, but I think sometimes you need to figure out things for yourself, too. I probably wouldn’t have believed anyone who told me the Master was up to no good, when I was under his thumb. Granted, I was fifteen, I guess I didn’t realize that you were so naive.” As per usual, a compliment from Skuld doubles as a slap in the face, but her adamantly no bullshit approach is just as judgemental as it is fair.

“Rueki always believes the best in people, even if she acts like she doesn’t.” Sora smiles at me gentle and so much older than the boy I remember playing twenty questions with in my living room.

“Oh stop.” I shake my head, taking another giant bite.

“Well you have. Why do you think you were the one who was so worked up over everyone we took out in the Keyblade Graveyard?” He asks, my mouth twists, my face feels ice cold.

“You okay, Rueks?” Lea asks, after all this time, sensing the abrupt shift in my heart. I draw my knees up to my chest and nod.

“I was friends with some of those people. Shared secrets with them, shared moments, made memories. They were our enemies, but they were people.” I remind Sora, loathing the way my own vulnerability is so thoroughly on display.

“Well that’s why light can’t just win out, you know?” Skuld asks. 

“People have dual sides, the realm needs to as well.” Riku agrees, and I think quite the opposite, actually. People do have two sides, but to have my darkest moments become but a memory is something I wouldn’t hesitate on in a heartbeat. My eyes find Isa’s, and I guess I can see what Lea and Skuld were saying, comparing and contrasting the colors, but in those eyes, I see the man I wanted to do all of this for. My husband’s best friend, someone I knew would be a part of my life, that I doubted I could forgive were my heart not injected with mass amounts of light. I cock my head to the side.

“B T Dubs, dude.” I kick his foot with mine, training his eyes to mine. Fuck, how do I say this in a way that doesn’t have everyone else making a big deal about things? “When we talked on the island about desensitizing...It’s uh...it’s good on my end.”

“Oh, that’s really sweet.” Skuld says, a smile cracking across her porcelain features. “You don’t hold blame against him for the wrongs he committed against you. I really didn’t peg you as being forgiving.”

My face goes bright red.

“Rueks…” Lea squeezes my arm, I flash Isa a mortified look. 

“I’m sorry, but I tell her everything. Perhaps you should try it sometime.” Isa shrugs, so I kick his leg and curl in further on my husband.

“I’m so proud of you.” Lea whispers in my ear, which tickles the back of my neck.

“Please don’t be, I’m still a bitch, it’s just...like, it’s old shit. There’s a lot worse things going on in the realm.” I shake my head. “I already told you, I’m just sick of being a such a grump all the damn time. I’m not gonna suddenly start being nice to you.” I tell Isa.

“Damn, Larxene’s seriously been rubbing off on you.” Lea chuckles, but he squeezes my waist with a sense of purpose, and I wonder if the things I unintentionally cast aside, if wounds that time healed, will be my savior tonight. Surely, Lea will forgive me for returning to Daybreak Town tonight if I forgive Isa?

“Well, to that, I guess I can say I understand how you might have seen me as a little abrasive. And maybe threatening to your home.” Skuld purses her lips.

“You guess?” Kairi snorts.

“Might have seen?” Sora balks.

“A little abrasive?” I ask and Skuld huffs.

“Seeing Lea and Isa were the only parts of my day that I wanted to be alive, Ven was one of my oldest friends and here you are, the prophesized woman my captor had been prattling endlessly about?” Skuld waves a hand at me. She looks healthier now, I realize. Still gangly and slim, but I get the feeling her ribs wouldn’t be protruding if she lifted up her shirt. “I already watched my friends pay a huge price to stay alive, I didn’t want the remaining few I had betrayed by someone they loved.” Skuld frowns.

“You don’t need to strain yourself.” I tell her. “I get it, but I only care about keeping my friends safe, I only ever have cared about that.”

“Sure.” She shrugs. “It’s just good that you’re not so misguided now.” 

Right. Sure. About that…

“I’m gonna grab another drink, anyone want anything?” I ask, springing up, forced politeness stretched too tight across my features. Deep blue eyes are on me, from the island, talking to the King, Donald, Goofy, Roxas and Xion. 

No one answers immediately, so I take off toward the kitchen, busying myself in the refrigerator, closest to where Naminé sits. 

“You’re making the wrong choice.” Naminé’s voice is only a breath above a whisper, too soft for anyone at the island with her to hear. I squeeze the can a little too tight as I close the refrigerator door and lean into it, trying to find eyes that she keeps darting away from me.

“I’m making a different choice, Nam, it’s not inherently wrong.” I mutter, under my breath.

“There was a time when you were like Skuld. When you believed in justice, in balance even when nothing else made sense.” She reminds me, my mouth twists.

“I have more knowledge now. I’m strong enough to do what I did for you in Oblivion, for everyone else. I can keep my friends safe, the Master trusts my judgement, he’s not going to hurt anyone.” I assure her, but a new type of cynicism brushes her features, which look somehow impossibly old.

“The Master lies, Rueki. He didn’t prepare any of his apprentices for how dark a future he had in mind, and I doubt he’s preparing you.” She mumbles.

“Well, what do you know?” I roll my eyes, hating her ignorance above all. She opens her mouth, emptiness only to follow before she closes it again. She twists her hands, adjusts the blanket that’s still wrapped around her shoulders.

“I read the reports ‘X’ wrote. There’s reason to speculate that she is one of the lost Masters.” Naminé mumbles and my eyes flash. Ava. “You were the easy choice for the empathy link because I knew that no matter how arduous, you’d see the right outcome. You’d make a choice for the good of the realm, that you wouldn’t be selfish.”

“I’d have killed anyone back then to keep Roxas alive, and you know that.” I remind her. “And when it came down to it, I was willing to drag his ass back to the Organization or eliminate him myself for Lea, don’t act like I’ve been a martyr this whole time, that’s selective.”

“You didn’t though, Rueki. I truly don’t think you could have. I’m so sorry you spent so long in the dark.” She shakes her head.

“You helped shovel it to me. Bygones can be bygones, you can’t take the past back any more than I can, but please don’t take away my future, that’s all that matters to me anymore.” I tell her. Her eyes narrow, she stares down at her feet.

“I’m sorry. You’ve seen the dark for so long now, you forget that the stars don’t light the sky in broad daylight.” She sighs.

“No, it’s honestly just that I don’t care if I ever live to see another night.” I mutter. “They’re all the same.”

“That darkness and deepness used to embody you. I pleaded with you on the island, before Sora and Kairi returned, not to let the parts of you that are an alchemist, that long for balance and logic, to die. Please don’t let them.” She begs. Finally, our eyes meet, hers sadder and more tired than I’ve ever seen.

“I’m not an alchemist. I’m the Alchemist.” And with that correction, I brush her aside, nothing but a fragment of the night.

\--

“So you mean you’ve been stomaching Vanitas’ nonsense these past few months and you haven’t even murdered him?” Kairi balks as we all settle back into the living room after dinner. Between her and Lea, they’re so attached to my sides, I haven’t had to spend much time without a redhead wrapped around me. 

“I feel bad for the kid.” Terra makes a face.

“He’s not a good person.” Aqua murmurs.

“Master Xehanort wasn’t kind to him.” Terra confesses.

“There are certain things that don’t get excused.” Aqua says plainly. Amaya’s face morphs.

“He’s Ven’s age though, isn’t he? I don’t like the idea of persecuting a child.” Amaya confesses, staring toward the room at the edge of the hall, where Lucidia was just put down for bed.

“Oh, let’s all forget about Vanitas.” Del waves a hand, propping an elbow up on the couch between Amaya and Aqua. 

“Del’s right, we’re in probably the best position we’ve been in, in months.” Riku nods. “We have an inside woman.”

My insides curl up and turn ice cold. How are my hands sweaty? Naminé’s eyes flick up to me, afraid, anxious, hurt. Like my choices are somehow a great slap in the face to her personally. I look away, shifting my weight between Lea and Kairi to drag a knee to my chest.

“Right, we all know Luxu’s a chatterbox, what’s he got planned that we can use to our advantage?” Skuld presses. 

“Come on, I don’t really want to talk about this.” I shake my head.

“Yeah, are we not just allowed to be fucking happy that my wife is back home?” Lea huffs. Skuld flushes.

“I wasn’t trying to--”

“I know, I’m just saying to lay off.” My head snaps as I look at Lea, lips parted, eyes stinging. In the past few months, he has learned every single word I’ve ever wanted him to say. How is it that I’ve forgotten even a syllable of what he might need to hear? 

“Right, sure. We still have time to sort these things out.” Xion nods. 

“Especially since we already made sure to protect so many worlds before this all started.” Roxas agrees. I snort. I can’t help it but I wish I could, I clap a hand over my mouth and shake my head.

“Sorry.” I say, hand falling away. “I think you guys are just a little blindly optimistic.” 

“And why would that be?” Aqua asks, raising an eyebrow. “Master Yen Sid has been directing us, he knows his fair share about your Master of Master’s.”

“It’s just…” I start and then drag my teeth across my lip, shaking my head. “Nothing, nevermind.”

“Rueki, now is the chance to speak up.” Naminé says, though she knows, though we both know, I hear the begging in her voice. She thinks this is a chance to step back, a moment that I can change who I want to be, and maybe it is. But I don’t want that. Since I started down this path, it’s not me I want to change, but my circumstances. I’m taking this realm back, I’m taking my friends back, I’m taking my husband back, why is everyone pleading with me to stop being so eternal, so limitless?

“If you’re on our side now, there’s no room for loyalties to the Master or Luxu.” Skuld says.

“Skuld’s right. There’s no room in this realm for indecision. You’re with us or with them, she doesn’t get to be a bystander.” Aqua announces.

“Hey, didn’t Lea just say to lay off?” Ven snaps.

“No, Ventus, I’m sorry, they’re both right.” Naminé announces. Our eyes lock, blue to green. I understand this is the last second I have to make the announcement myself before she snatches it from me. I take a shaky breath, the air goes down heavier.

I hate her, I hate anyone who makes me do this, but maybe she’s right. Maybe the time for sitting idly by is long since gone.

“I’m going back to Daybreak Town tonight.” The world seems to stop functioning at the uttering of a sentence. I don’t waver, but all of my friends do, stilled in moments that are supposed to be natural, supposed to make them feel normal and good and well. Slowly, with control, I wrap my fingers around the arm of the couch. No one’s going to change this resolve, no one’s going to wreck how steadfast I feel.

Naminé rises from the kitchen table. Her blue eyes swim as they search mine, there are so many unmet expectations, so many shortcomings on my part, that I don’t even think one of us could begin to cut through her disappointment.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m not sorry.” I say quickly, and it feels like a safeguard, like casting reflect, like the only shot I have at keeping my heart shielded from everything the realm already depleted. 

“Then why are you here?” Aqua asks in a low voice, once more putting herself between me and Amaya. Amaya notices this, notices and isn’t happy. She flat out stomps from behind Aqua, pushing herself away from the counter to search my face. Her expression is maybe the only one in the room that doesn’t break.

“You really believe in what the Master of Masters is doing.” She observes, not questioning or judging or yelling. My heart hiccups a little. I’m not getting thrown aside, this time is different, someone in this place is letting me speak. I push myself off the couch, hope cracking my mask.

“Because she’s been brainwashed.” Aqua murmurs, my skin burns, my eyes prickle. I could tell her and her fairweather friendship and her lack of understanding to go to hell. “Why can’t you understand that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is?”

“Maybe the same reason you can’t wrap your fucking head around Eraqus and Yen Sid ever being wrong.” I snap.

“Rueki…” Xion protests, but to my utter dismay, Ventus rises. 

“No, let her speak, for once just let her say what she has too, didn’t all of us telling her that she was wrong lead her to leave last time?” Ven harps.

“Then let her!” Aqua snaps. My fists ball.

“Fuck you.” I murmur. There’s a collective silence. 

“Aqua’s right.” Skuld says. “The Master’s dealing in absolutes, if you’re going to, there’s no room for sympathies.”

“Are we any better if we’re throwing Rueki away? She came back to us.” Roxas eyes are a raging storm, he’s on his feet and looks ready to swing, and I love this boy, love him with every square ounce of my heart and then some. But--

“Stop defending me, kid.” I shake my head. “So what, half of you have your mind made up about me and the other half only give a fuck about what I have to say if you think you can persuade me worth a damn? Does it mean anything to anyone how many times we had each other’s backs?”

“Of course it does.” Mickey nods.

“But history counts for nothing if you’re choosing the wrong future.” Aqua says, still firm, still rigid as hell.

“Don’t.” Amaya snaps at her. Aqua turns, eyes blown wide. “Don’t you dare make me choose between giving my best friend a home or you, because you will not like what I pick.” For being one of two in this room who wield no weapon, there is no fragility in Amaya. She’s stronger than I give her credit for, stronger than me. 

“I think Aqua just understands, a lot better than most of us, what a dark path can do to the people around you. I know this is what you believe is right, but I believed in Ansem, Terra believed in Xehanort, Isa believed in Xemnas.” Riku reminds me.

“That was darkness, that’s different.” I shake my head.

“How many times do you need to see people playing god before you realize that you can’t have only one thing?” Aqua snaps.

“You haven’t seen what the realm can be like! Things were good, they were peaceful!” I insist.

“Because we were kids and couldn’t see what was happening beneath the surface!” Skuld shouts.

“Says you, but Ludor and Lauriam and Elrena tell a damn different story.” I throw my hands up.

“So does Luxu, is that a coincidence?” Skuld cocks her head.

“Fuck you, don’t you think it’s strange that of all the lives reincarnated, you are the only one standing in opposition to the Master?” I ask

“It’s not just me, Ven is too.” Skuld reminds me.

“But I don’t have my memories.” Ven shakes his head. “Not really, but they’re spotty, I don’t remember half of what I think I should.” 

“Because Vanitas has those memories. And what side is he on?” I ask.

“Shouldn’t that be an indicator though, Rueki?” Sora asks, brow coming together. “You’re my friend, I know you would never try to hurt anyone, but you’re standing beside all of our enemies.”

Or maybe he’s just standing beside all of mine. That thought chills me down past my organs, pumping ice into my marrow. I’m watching myself lose the room again, I’m watching Lea’s face morph in rage and horror, I’m watching Kairi ring her hands, I’m watching the conflict brew inside Del.

“Is this really what we’re coming to?” Kairi asks, sickly. “Now suddenly everything’s wrong and we can’t be friends with Rueki and just have to act like she’s our enemy? Because I can’t do that.” She shakes her head as tears start to pop in her indigo eyes. Her hair brushes her cheeks. Sora reaches out for her hand and she squeezes it, like it offers life support. “Why can Terra and Riku and Isa be forgiven but it’s different when it’s my best friend?”

“Because she’s not asking to be forgiven.” Lea finally speaks up, in a voice like a crematory, low and deadly. The mark in my hip screeches again. My breath hitches.

“I think if anyone is being level about this, it is Kairi and Amaya. There are those of us who will not repent for actions that saved the ones we love.” Isa murmurs. Our eyes catch, my heart sputters. 

“In the end, the means can be justified.” I say, and I hope with every fiber in my body that he understands. 

“I’m embarrassed by what the darkness did to me.” Terra whispers. “But maybe those of us that have been through this can give you advice, Rueki.”

“I don’t want advice, I’m doing a job and I want to be treated like that, stop looking at me like I’m dirty because of the tasks I complete. I’m not gonna bash any of you for standing by old ways, so don’t you dare talk down to me like I’m the singular idiot in a group of geniuses for feeling different.” I plead. “I’m not...has no one even thought once how bad this realm, how bad all of us have paid for balance? What the hell is so wrong with a reset, a clean beginning for all of us? One where we don’t have to take the constant push and pull of what’s going to go wrong this year? Isn’t anyone else so sick of the nightmares?”

There’s silence. Kairi’s sobbing now, maybe not for herself, but certainly for the rest of us, Xion twists her hands, Isa nods. Flat out nods in agreement. And Lea’s eyes find mine, curious now, unguarded, open.

“We’ve paid enough so now the rest of the realm needs to pay with genocide?” Naminé finally speaks up and the unrest begins again. “Is that how you justified stealing Queen Rapnuzel’s light? Did you ever consider what that struggle could do to her heart? Or how yours may be forever fractured for stealing something innocent from someone so pure?” She asks. “I don’t know what went wrong, how we all consecutively failed you. But what’s next, Rueki? Who is next? You were a hero, but can you still justify calling yourself one when the Master of Master’s demands one of our lives as payment?”

“He won’t!” I insist.

“You can’t know that.” Skuld murmurs.

“All he wants is the light.” Donald recalls.

“And we have a pure light in our group to keep safe.” Riku breathes, pinching his eyes shut, clear misery at my failure crippling him. 

“We have two.” Aqua clarifies. Ven’s face goes bright red.

“Stop.” He begs her.

“No.” She growls. “Not again. Rueki, there was a time we confided in each other, in fears we had related to those we love. I will not let you be the thing that takes my friends away from me.”

“I think the lines are clearly drawn.” Skuld agrees. 

“What about us?” Lea asks me. My hands grope for the fabric of my skort, trying to displace some of the clamminess in my hands.

“We make it work.” I try.

“No.” He shakes his head. “You said this is all for me, to keep me safe. I will lay down my blade today and never raise it again. I’ll do it all for you. You can open up dark corridors again, we’ll hide in one, we’ll find a different realm, I’ll go wherever you lead me and we’ll never dirty our hands in a war again. I’ll choose you, I’ll choose you above all of this. Just do the same for me, just change your mind this one time, I don’t care if you mean it now, we’ll make things so good again that you forget about ever wanting anything else.” Lea gets up, takes my face into his hands and it’s all I can do to remind my heart to beat still and not just give it all away and throw my arms around him. “It can be like it was last time you needed to heal. I’ll take care of you, you’re my soulmate, right? So let’s just be. None of the rest of this realm matters, but don’t walk away again. Don’t go back.”

I raise my hands to touch Lea’s. They shake and the tremors spread to my arms and my insides are absolutely being eaten alive, but I keep the tears at bay as I take his hands into mine, bring them down and set them at our sides. 

Once upon a time, there was an alchemist who, after years of suffering was granted everything she ever wanted.

It was too little too late.

“I can’t ignore the realm anymore, Lea.” I whisper. “I know what I can do, and I need you to trust me, not anyone else, me, your wife, your soulmate, that what I’m doing is right. This is my destiny, this is what I was born for.”

“Why can’t you trust me? Why can’t you trust that I spent a decade committing wrongs in the name of what I thought was good, and that I know what it looks like when you do it? Why can’t you listen to me, why does your destiny matter but mine doesn’t?” He snaps, gripping my hands so hard, it hurts. I squeeze back, I long to hurt too. We’re going to keep doing this. Forever.

We’re going to keep pushing, we’re going to keep tugging. Until I can erase the blackness from our world.

“Because it doesn’t. And I don’t trust you.” I whisper. It’s the cruelest thing I’ve ever said, and have a lie. I’ve never hated myself more. I wish he’d tear a hand away and slap me, but he doesn’t, I just feel his tears staining both of our cheeks. “I guided you here, I know what’s right.”

And how can it be this? How can it be a world where I have to show him I love him least to grapple for power than neither of us need but the darkness has convinced us we do?

“You don’t anymore!” He shakes his head, forehead rocking against mine. “Maybe I...Maybe I don’t trust you anymore either. Maybe I don’t give a damn what your destiny is either. You’re cruel, you’re self righteous. Maybe I hate you.” But he doesn’t stop squeezing me and I think fine. Fine, hate me, hurt me, stop loving me, cast me aside.

“Maybe you should.” I murmur.

“Please.” He begs. “What words did Xigbar have to say to you to talk you onto his side? How do I say them and bring you back?”

My heart snaps. Snaps and I watch the pieces fall into my own abyss, never to return. 

“I love you Lea. You have to let me do this for you.” I beg. His shoulders are shaking and it seems so impossible that someone so imposing, someone who was this dark, enticing caricature of a man, this charming piece of shit who could have sweet talked me into the edge of nothingness could be here and now and vulnerable and crumbling against me.

“How?” He asks. “What did he have to do? What did he have to say to you, what kind of hold does he have on you? Is he threatening you?”

“No.” I shake my head, wishing I was a braver woman, wishing I was smart enough to pull away, to walk away.

“Then what? Did he promise you something? Are you...I mean are you two together?” Lea demands. I stop breathing, and then quickly I gasp for breath and finally, I tear my hands away. His eyes are huge. All eyes in the room are on me, hands on mouths and hearts, a collective, horrified gasp. There’s no one in the room who missed that exchange or my reaction.

“Rueki…” Kairi starts, but I shake my head.

“You are, aren’t you?” Lea asks. “You’re with him.”

“Not anymore but… I thought you left me for her.” I gesture to Skuld. 

“So you had to hurt me worse?” He asks.

“I came back when I found out I was wrong, I left him for you, I’d throw it all way for you, for fucks sake, I’m throwing away a happy home because I fucking love you!” I snap.

“But you’re not! I gave you me, I offered you every fucking thing you asked for and it wasn’t enough, it’s never enough, you can’t help yourself. I give you everything I have but you’ve just gotta take and take and...I don’t...I don’t know if I…” He cards a hand through his hair and takes two massive steps away from me. “It’s always got to be about you. So go. Keep your ego and your ambitions. Have him. I don’t give a fuck.”

“This is for us, for the end we envisioned on the beach when we were Nobodies. This is how we make it out, Lea.” I promise.

“Well what the fuck happens when you choose yourself over everyone else, Rueki? What happens when you’ve got your house and your freedom and your ship, and you’re the only one in it? What happens when you cut us all off, when you burn us up and it’s you on that beach alone, thinking of how if you just do one more thing, it’ll be enough?” He demands. “It’s not. If it’s not now, it’s never going to be.” 

I press my fingernails into the fabric of the wraps I wear, and nod. My hands and my face and my whole world are pale. But regardless of what he says, of what anyone has to say, this is what I have to do.

“You’re a monster.” He accuses.

And so was he, and I forgave. It’s funny, when the tables turn he had love in his arms and mine are empty.

I was so stupid, everything I knew of love was a lie, I wasn’t in it anyway. What’s a soul to someone who doesn’t believe in one?

What is happiness to someone with hands over both eyes?

I wave my hand and fall back into a dark corridor that no one dares chase me through.

\--

Reality flickers. My body glitches, spasms, shudders and I can actually see the static in my mind, growing into tidal waves that issue no warning as they beat into me.

My heels click through the halls of the castle, loud echoing, puncturing the static, but not enough. The dull roar is nails down the back of my spine, devouring like an ice pick. 

The sun is going down, I hope it never rises again.

My hand closes around a doorknob, I throw the door open so hard, the wood smacks into the wall like a scream.

Faces find me, but never eyes, well one eye, but he sees me, then looks away, pointed nonchalance finding the window.

“Could you not be bothered with manners?” Aced snaps.

“When I need your attitude, I’ll ask for it.” I hiss. Cares fall away like shards of broken glass.

“What did you say?” He growls, but I don’t deign another glance. Not when the white noise is shrieking in the back of my mind, not when my soul is wheezing, giving its last breath. 

Good people do bad things, compassion heals, life starts anew when love is the source of motivation.

But Rueki’s still croaking dead on the floor at the feet of everyone who promised her that she could come home.

Luxu’s a target, quicker than he has a response for, I take his face, sharp and angular, dangerous and grizzled into my hands.

“I went home.” The words leave my mouth in the voice I trembled at, the year Kairi died. The voice I likened to a demon, something with claws that drug her way up my mind. In that decay, she was born, and only now, can she take her first steps. She stretches out long and lithe, my deepest impulses sigh in wicked relief.

The Alchemist, the prophesized creature in the Master’s visions was not something I was born, but I did create her, toiling in the ashes of the little deaths the realm has plunged into me.

“Squirt, come on, we’re in a meeting, if this is a clearing your conscience thing, there’s a better time for it.” Luxu sighs, but I see that one eye, searching, begging, like he used to. For entertainment, for a spark so bright it aches like the kiss of an electric socket.

“My conscience is hardly important at this point anymore. I didn’t grow up when I walked away from you, I regressed. I was weak, I was fragile. But I needed to go home so I could realize there was nothing left for me there.” I insist.

Luxu turns to the Master, but I press my fingertips into his jaw, training his gaze to me.

“Games are fun, squirt. But I told you, I can’t keep playing them with you.” He murmurs, keeping his voice low, almost afraid of the dialogue his siblings must already be conjuring. His heart must ache, must throb with the pathetic evanescence of being just shy of never enough.

“No games.” I assure him, bringing my forehead down to his. “None at all.”

“You’re walking away from Axel after what we talked about this morning?” His brows raise, I feel it against my skin and grind my forehead into his, trying to smear away traces of his doubt.

“I would tear apart everything I ever built with him to prove to you that I’m done with that life.” That I need to run so far from it my legs dig me holes in the ground. There’s another look that Luxu exchanges with the Master, twisting away from me, my grip demands more and Luxu’s eye flashes. I think possibly for the first time, it dawns on him, the urgency of my words. A grin turns the spark in his eye into an explosion. He sets a hand over mine, leather grazing my knuckles. “I’m choosing peace. I’m choosing the light. I’m choosing you.” 

“Mean it.” He baits. My heart becomes a mistake, smashed and shredded, a remnant on the ground. I put a heel into it.

“I want you.” I murmur, crushing my pride beneath my boot.

“Do better.” He breathes, what a wicked temptation.

“I choose you.” I decide, hearing immediately, the rumble in his chest like a thunderstorm.

“Do better.” He demands again.

I throw my cards out on the table, what do I know of it, anyway?

“I love you.”


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnd this chapter is the end of arc two! So you guys know the deal, the playlist will be in the notes at the end, and like I said in the last chapter, I'll see all of you crazy kids on August 2nd with the third and final arc!

XLIII.

In the stillness of what follows, there’s only me.

Silence infects like a plague through the castle, and I get the sinking feeling that it’s my fault, but feelings can be shunted off my shoulders like a cloak. They pool at the floor and with careful precision, I can ignore that they’re there in the first place.

Elrena’s hardly made an appearance since our evening in Midgar. Emyd drops his eyes the second I enter a room, there’s a desperate plea in the way Ludor looks at me. 

So many eyes, so many questions that die on lips.

“So the good news is, we’re on our way to absolute completion.” The Master is speaking what I already know, what I am seeing to fruition. My legs splayed across Luxu’s lap, my back to the alcove of the bay window, I curl my fingers individually into my palm. Into a hand that aches, deep and sore, like an infection. But only yesterday, this hand balanced a blade and pointed it to a world’s heart, banishing that world to the darkness, trapping it in data, soon to be completely erased.

Completion is something I didn’t previously realize I was motivated by. There is something vividly satisfying about having a full set. Completion to the Master means seeing every world save the seven, not just thirteen, devoured entirely. Completion means finding the Destiny Island’s stifling and alone one night and plunging it and the memories that paint below the tip of the iceberg, into nothingness.

‘If the Master is dealing in absolutes, if you’re going to, there’s no room for sympathies.’

So I suppose the Master is, and I do agree, there isn’t a place for guilt, for lingering ties and for the moments I went beyond for people that have left those times behind.

Seven and thirteen are such trite numbers when we can claim them all, reuniting only the sealed worlds as pieces to this pristine puzzle. 

“Oh!” Invi delights, turning from me, where I’m curled up, to Vanitas, who has also been allowed out to complete the purging of worlds. He to worlds forgotten, me to those sealed off by Xion and Roxas and Ventus and Sora and anyone whose heart is tied in any way to mine.

Any heart I can trick a world into believing is mine, and hearts are very easy to trick.

“This is wonderful news, Vanitas, Rueki.” Ira nods to us, though his praise doesn’t seem to be either of our concern. I meet Vanitas’ glance, both of our eyes equal in steel. 

“Emyd has…” Aced begins, jaw setting, irritation flowing off of him in nearly visible waves.

“Been playing some really sweet music?” Emyd finishes, brow coming together. 

“There’s been some serious unrest in the worlds. Everywhere’s starting to feel the shift.” Luxu says, swiping a hand across my calf. Every hair on my body stands up, protesting traitorously. 

So I set a hand on his, tracing tenderly, the outline of his knuckles through his gloves. This is what I want. This is what gives me life, what keeps me sustaining. Becoming what I had to in order to survive is what led me to this point, I’m not punishing myself for taking the singular last shot I have at anything more than ghosting through my own life. 

My eyes find the emptiness inside the Master’s hood. 

He sees, I remind myself. He will smell hesitation on me a mile away, and hesitation is something I have no more need for.

But tiny hands grab the fabric of my mind and tear so hard, I hear a rip. My hands clench, fingernails bite into the wraps I wear from wrist to the belly of my palms.

There’s nothing else for me back there, there’s nothing in my home I could ever want to return to, I’d rip the soul out of my still beating body and cast it aside if only I could. Children feel guilty when they let down expectations. 

I’ll hold mine under water until I feel them stop struggling beneath me.

The fire is out, I don’t miss its burn.

“They should count themselves lucky.” I mutter, gaze finding the window once more. In my peripheral vision, I see Elrena shift. It doesn’t take the intimate knowledge we were stumbling toward with each other, for me to see how palpably displeased she is. Elrena’s heart is still widely on display, though I’ve taken mine and shoved it into the depths of the blackness of all that I am.

Ludor doesn’t seem to like the look of me either, but I know what warms my bed and my body, I know what gives this fresh rage a home, curled up comfortably beneath my ribs--I know who gives me enough light to swallow the bitter pill that the rest of the realm is jamming down my throat.

“As if.” Luxu scoffs beside me, squeezing my ankle like an affectionate shackle. “Humans don’t like change. I mean, you know, present company excluded.” Though I don’t know how many of my companions burn with the same vigor I do.

Burn like a fire, burn in waves, flames licking at my skin, hot and tantalizing, teasing, filled with the type of love that stretches and swells at the furthest edges of my heart, taking me apart, promising me lifetimes.

Shit.

My hands grope my own thighs, my nails bite into such soft, thin skin.

“Perhaps it’s time to make a bolder move. Remind the realm things are irreversible.” Gula suggests, which is probably the most coherent thing I’ve heard come from his mouth. Emyd raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, no, don’t put me down for anything bold.” He pipes up.

“Certainly not.” Lauriam smirks.

“Yeah, I'd say it's time.” The Master’s got his leather gloved hands splayed out across the table, the empty circle of his face is aimed at me again, knowing speculating, and I’m certain whatever occasion it is, I will rise. “Master Aqua, I hear, is training and recruiting in the Land of Departure.”

“What a sham.” Lauriam rolls his eyes.

“A woman with a purpose, certainly, though I suppose, from what was spoken of her, I’m shocked she’s recruiting children unless she doesn’t mean for them to be a part of this war.” Ludor murmurs, from the chair he’s settled in.

“Aqua doesn’t think there’s room for wavering.” Vanitas speaks, not me and my face goes completely ashen. Our eyes meet. I don’t think for a moment he realizes that the thought was mine, not his, but he looks back down at the ground, miserable and pissy--not high on light. 

“Do you think you could take out the Land of Departure?” The Master cocks his shrouded head to the side.

“Tcch.” Is Vanitas’ response, which I think is an affirmative.

“Ummm...are we really going to do that if she’s training students?” Emyd asks, brows coming together.

“She’s got plenty of resources on her to get children out of danger, if she chooses not to, that says more about her than any of us.” I say, pressing my nails deeper into my skin. It breaks, and even then I’m not satisfied, but the bright red that blossoms on my leg is at least a bit mesmerizing.

Red--like the light that should follow me, swift and steady and resounding. Inside my mouth begins to taste so much like bile. 

“I don’t think we need a realm filled with more children, brainwashed into believing light is only acceptable in small doses.” Ira agrees. 

“Then it’s settled, Rueki, Vanitas and Emyd can go and conquer this Land of Departure.” Aced pounds a fist to the table, Emyd laughs anxiously.

“Uh...do I have to?” He asks.

“I’d be happy to take his place.” Lauriam pipes up.

“You can all go. Spare anyone you think shows purpose and might be sympathetic to our cause. You’re all equipped to handle filling a world with darkness. Maybe remind Master Aqua and the others that no amount of children are going to serve as a shield for her next to what you’re all capable of.” The Master says, Ludor looks downright sick, but not me. These final moments beg decisive actions. No longer is there room for fluff missions to bat eyes at princesses.

“I was under the impression that all of this was to restore the world to a better state, not to inflict the same war upon children that was inflicted upon us.” Ludor voices, and Aced looks about ready to shout something in retort, but I hardly give a fuck.

“If Aqua’s hiding behind children, that’s her choice, not ours.” I say, though a memory bubbles to the surface in the edges of my mind. 

_Is that your shield? Won’t do you any good, I’m afraid._

Don’t think about him, don’t think about the judgement he doesn’t deserve to pass, because he used to be like this, he used to be willing to stomach the means, just so see the end and it’s not my fault he changed.

“Precisely. All the rest of us can do is make sure another generation isn’t raised, brainwashed.” Ira nods. Still, Ludor looks unconvinced.

“Isn’t ignorance as cruel a punishment as any?” Invi asks. Ludor clears his throat finally and pushes himself up from the chair, eyes searching mine, hungry for answers that I don’t know questions to.

“This, you think is the path to the future you want?” Ludor asks me, in earnest, my head finds uneven ground, a hole I haven’t patched with light like cement. Static not entirely blurred clean.

No, I want to go home, I want my friends, I want my family, I’m tired and so is my body and I can’t keep going like this, I think death is the only end I have in store for me, but I’m so afraid of it, it’s already a noose around my neck, tethering all of my choices.

My emotional mind is still weak, using loneliness as a crutch, treating a different life as a coping mechanism. My logical mind is clear as ever, it knows better than to allow me back down that type of path.

“It’s what we all want, right? A generation of wielders, trained in the image of our present company.” The Master says, pride and glory swell in my chest. A generation of wielders who will know that light isn’t something to be taken in small doses, a generation that knows what I’ve suffered, a realm that overflows with those thanking me for the sacrifices--that appreciates, that sets me on an impossible pedestal.

I don’t need heroics as a motivator, but the mere thought is intoxicating. I’d put anything aside for knowledge and through my choices the entire realm can learn, can be enlightened. 

I nod, Ludor looks deflated, he turns away. Elrena’s mouth is pursed. The only one looking at me with any semblance of respect is Lauriam--

Because he’s the only one who wants this as bad. 

“So right, work tomorrow…” Emyd trails off, voice gentle and musing. “For now, ice cream?”

“Whatever.” Elrena rolls her eyes, pushes herself up and skulks out of the room. Ludor looks between me and her and then chases her out. 

“Forgive her outbursts, Master.” Lauriam groans. “Are we dismissed?”

“Definitely, you kids have fun. And tomorrow, may your hearts be your guiding key.” The Master waves a hand and the phrase reignites old memories. Waking Naminé, the pulsating waves of fear when I ran from my own Station of Awakening, like lingering would cause monsters to wake. 

Maybe they have, but the monster in my heart is me, and I don’t fear it. If anything, these teeth and talons have reminded me that my heart is the only devil I can trust.

What a fickle thing a soul is.

My eyes find Lauriam’s, he and I lead the way out the door, Vanitas and Emyd clattering behind us. To my surprise, Ludor and Elrena haven’t gone far, in fact they’re talking in hushed voices, with narrowed eyes, when we exit. They both freeze, but there’s no need to speculate what their conversation consisted of.

“Well, you’ve taken on all the appeal of a religious zealot.” Elrena gripes, crossing her arms to her chest. Lauriam rocks back on his heels, Emyd makes a face. I open my mouth, logic telling me that this is someone I worked really hard to foster closeness with it--impulse screaming at me to silence her, because I need this devotion like a drug. “What the fuck happened to you these last few weeks? And since when are you back with Xigbar?”

“Um...I mean, it’s none of our business, right?” Emyd rubs the back of his neck, Elrena turns on him, eyes blazing, threatening to electrify. Emyd fumbles, taking two massive steps back. “I just mean I don’t need to know about Rueki having another up and down love affair.”

“I’d simply rather not hear about it at all, if I’m being frank.” Ludor clears his throat.

“Oh wow, so glad you’re all responding when I clearly didn’t ask you. Elrena waves a hand.

“Are you attempting to burn your remaining bridges with all of your might?” Lauriam leers.

“You can stay out of it, too.” She snaps at him.

“Then stop throwing tantrums in the hallway.” Vanitas rolls his eyes and shoves straight past her, checking her with his shoulder. Elrena’s footing holds strong, though she sparks, just like I do, frustration creasing her brow as she does.

“Seriously, you’re just gonna stand there like an asshole?” She asks me, my mouth twists.

“I don’t need to come get ice cream if you don’t want me to.” Her words are pressure, heaving with all their might against the bubble my mind has created as a defense mechanism for things best left to rot away. 

“You’re not that fucking stupid.” She bites, and I wince, something seizing at the base of my throat, catching in my eyes, which start to burn.

No, no, none of this. I’ve gone through this in my head, that’s another life, another world, another me. I count inhales and exhales--in one two three, out one two three--as I roll my shoulders back.

“Hey…” Her voice trails off, softening momentarily. My unresponsiveness sets her back off though cuz she straight up stomps her foot into the ground. “Rueki.”

This might be the first time she’s used my name, certainly the first time she’s been this soft with it, and I’m taking her kindness for granted in the worst of ways, watching it all float away.

“I’d really rather not talk about it.” I admit, my hands start to shake, so I tap them against my sides, just to feel the stinging of my fingertips against my legs. 

“Tough shit.” She crosses her arms to her chest. “I’ve told you plenty of things I didn’t want to talk about it.”

And the whole process was about as exciting as vaccinating a toddler, I don’t owe her anything, if nothing else she has earned only my silence, me shutting her out as cruel and callous as she wasted years being with me. I’m not someone’s redemption arc, I’m a match that strikes, that devours worlds and takes them to the ground, that burns civilizations to--

Fuck!

I yank a hand back through my hair, huff and pull the hair tie off my wrist, wrapping a bun on top of my head.

“Can we please just go outside?” I grunt. Cautiously, a hand touches my shoulder. Lauriam’s eyes are intense and searching and it’s beyond strange.

“You went home.” He predicts.

My skin takes on the resounding quality of an ice age. A cold front pushes into my veins, but I don’t miss the fire. I don’t miss the way it tore me to ashes. I don’t miss a man whose name is nothing more than a fist wrapped around my throat, depriving me of oxygen because he doesn’t want to share a single breath.

I’m a fucking monster, who cares anyway.

“Rueki…” Emyd’s eyes flash. I shake my head and take massive strides down the hall, legs too short to create any distance with the four that follow me.

Solidarity only strikes when we make it to the hill. Ludor sets a hand on my shoulder. It carries about the same amount of sympathy as a good old fashioned ‘tough luck’. I sink to the ground drawing my knees to my chest. Elrena groans loudly, sits down beside me and tugs her arms around my shoulders, drawing my back into her chest.

“You fucking idiot. You knew he was with Skuld, why would you do that?” She demands, I shake my head.

“Because he wasn’t with Skuld. I heard wrong. He just doesn’t want me.” The last five words deliver a gut punch upon each syllable that leaves me choking on breath I need so badly. “It doesn’t matter, I hate him. He wants me to let him the fuck down, good, fine, that’s what I want too. And he’s just gonna keep accusing me of being the one to turn my back, me when he promised he’d follow, when he fucking promised he’d be the first to chase after me, that he’d be my red light.” I grab a handful of grass, tearing it out of the dirt and throwing it as far as I can with Elrena’s arms around me. “And I keep having these fucked up, goddamn dreams about two women talking about storms and these hands on me, all over me, but before I can smack them away, they turn into these spiky orange flower petals and I’m covered in dandelion seeds, and I just wish one fucking night I could wake up and feel like I was still breathing, because I don’t want a fucking quick death, I don’t want to die, I just want this goddamn realm to turn to ash so I can build something good on it!”

Quite falls around us, like a blanket, but it’s something more that smothers. I think perhaps I’ve hit too close to home for Elrena, in my peripheral vision I see her mouth twisting, her brow screwing up. She pulls away from me, placing her hands down in the dirt beside mine. She grabs a handful of grass and tosses it aside.

“Okay.” She says finally. “You’re right. The realm is shit, let’s wreck it.” There’s more resolution in just the way she contemplates my rage--my grief, this is grief, this ache in my chest is too much to bear, but if I’m a monster than I should stomach it, I should choke it down whole--than in anything that Master has uttered in our time here. I wonder if that means that I’ve now become the goddess of disaster, the queen of misery, chaos embodied, if I’m now recruiting. 

After all, I’m only human.

Ludor inhales deeply behind me, his face still a puzzle that the walls I’ve put up have made impossible to decipher.

Who needs an empathy link, who needs empathy at all, I’d carve out every time I felt too much, all at once, if it meant I never had to feel this way again.

“You truly believe utter eradication is the only way to remedy the realm?” Ludor asks, as though the diluted sunlight creeping through the clouds now makes me older and wiser, suddenly the elderly woman whispering cautionary tales and dreaming of golden days I didn’t realize were mine until they seared my palms beyond recognition.

“It seems exhausting.” Emyd calls his sitar to his hands and sinks down onto the grass, playing music too soft, too sweet. He strikes a minor chord and I finally sigh, realizing I know the song he’s playing. Where from, I’m not sure, but the memory feels warm and heavy in the back of my head, reminiscent of times when hair brushing was my biggest dilemma. Perhaps Cid played it when I was younger. 

“There was a certain point, when I flew ships, when we’d get one in that would be so destroyed, we’d scrap it. We’d sell it for parts because repairing it would cost more than it was worth, more than anyone had to give.” I explain.

“And you believe the realm is the same.” Ludor muses. I nod, my weight settling onto my palms as I contemplate tearing this low sunrise straight out of the sky. 

“I think the realm’s been totaled for so long now. And I think that we are the one last defense against the crime of idiocy. It’s not my fault that there are people who can’t see that this place is irreparable.” My fingertips press into the dirt, savoring the way it sinks beneath them. “How did you know I went home?” I ask Lauriam, who exhales softly, wise and knowing. 

“Because you have been eerily like my sister since the first day I met you, since before I recalled who she was. And since your journey to Motunui, you have been the polar opposite.” He says. “You, Rueki, have never been a particularly hardy person. You’ve been thin skinned and soft and vulnerable for as long as we’ve known each other no matter how you like to paint yourself otherwise, but you behave now as though your strength lies in building your walls as high as the sky.”

“Isn’t it?” I ask.

“For some.” He agrees. “But I’ve always considered your strength your ability to get back up, no matter the challenge at hand.”

And now I’m lying dead in a tomb, the underworld as my kingdom. 

“You’re not the only one having strange dreams.” Emyd says. “I dream about mermaids.” Emyd says. We all meet him with confusion, he just bites his lips and strums. “Well, a river nymph. I’m always chasing her from one stream to another. I can’t see her, but I hear her laughing, and every time I get close, she dips into the river and I jump in after her. And suddenly the river becomes an ocean and it gets dark and I’m drowning. Sometimes I make it to the surface, just to find that I’m in a storm and am bound to go under. Sometimes I never make it to the top.”

We’re all very quiet, but his mention of the word ‘nymph’ has me thinking ‘Savage Nymph’ might be the cruelest moniker of them all. 

“But I’ve dreamed like that since I was a Nobody, and I can’t drown, I can’t even get wet if I don’t want to. Can’t dreams just be weird and symbolic?” He asks. Elrena snorts and shakes her head, I catch her jaw tilted back and her eyes on the sky, like she’s hoping the sun can just burn her away too. “What?” He asks.

“Well, whatever they are… none of it makes sense to me. Is any of this for real, or not?” I ask. 

“None of this has felt real since Lady Ava sent us to the data world.” Lauriam confesses, but then his face grows dark, contemplation like a shadow washing over. “Every time I close my eyes I see Strelitzia. I hear her scream and I wonder who could have looked at my sister and followed through with killing her.” He exhales the words as though admitting them is an inherent character flaw. He fingers the fabric of his trousers, jaw locking into place.

“I’ve dreamt of Ephemer since the morning I woke up here.” Ludor confesses, worry creasing his features. Though his skin shows no telltale signs of the lifetimes he spent in Shinjuku his eyes do and I’m starting to realize they always have.

I wonder how ancient mine must seem and fear the answer and want to claw them out.

“Dreams are just dreams, it’s dumb and illogical to speculate about them, they don’t mean anything.” Elrena grumbles. Emyd’s gentle fingers stop playing music, his features screw up, he blinks back something, shakes his head and resumes playing.

“Well what do you dream about?” He asks her and she scoffs, but I hear the answer--

I hear it because I can’t get green eyes and sharp features and red hair like fire and brimstone out of my head.

“Kicking that stupid thing out of your hand.” She growls, defenses raising the baby hairs on her arms. 

“Okay, okay, jeez! Sorry!” Emyd mutters, though she might be being completely honest with him. Still, she doesn’t say a word, so I set a hand over hers, the first brush of skin that hasn’t asked too much from mine, that I’ve felt in twelve nights.

The door is latched behind me, there’s no looking back into blackness.

Alone the alchemist will stand and in the twilight hear the call   
To meet the light’s endless demand or in the darkness watch them fall  
They seal the realm in eternal sleep  
The binding promise, still to keep…

I look at the four on the hill with me. Eternal sleep sounds like a consolation prize, like an eloquent way to phrase ending it all, but I guess with the rapid conversion of these worlds into data, after their fall to darkness, it isn’t a lie. Vanitas and I have been efficient in our own rights, separate, destructive, a pitch black wildfire spreading across the remnants of the realm fast enough that even the haziest of worlds begins to stir. But it’s no matter. Nothing’s stopped us from going as far as we have, the hearts of worlds don’t recognize either our ours as different from the ones who sealed them.

They fall one by one, crashing straight into our goal like a landslide. And the thought of pushing my blade into Aqua’s has me starving.

The thought of my blade clattering against any of those I left behind is not something I dread. Not when the pain of living through it will keep me awake and my eyes peeled wide. 

Rueki’s dead, the door to her life is latched behind me. The Alchemist cannot dare to have a second’s hesitation. One by one, they can fall, and I’ll feel nothing.

I’ll feel everything.

\--

There are hands all over me. Hands and words spoken far too fast, like a migraine, bursting hot and intense through my veins. Lips demand at the base of my throat, teeth worry my skin, Luxu pushes light straight into my heart, my eyes roll back as he pushes into me, his body reacting to the guttural scream that pierces my throat.

This is the best part of the nightmare being real. Nothing morphs into something surreal, I swallow it all down, take it in tangible doses until there’s nothing more. Reality is cold and it asks too much, but there are no distorting promises to dissolve on the tip of my tongue.

There are no sweet lies or bright green eyes or assurances of traveling the fastest and putting me first.

There’s only me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Starlight- Muse (R)  
2\. Blinding Lights- The Weeknd (X)  
3\. I Know You- Skylar Grey (L)  
4\. I’m On Fire- Bruce Springsteen (X)  
5\. Far From Home- Five Finger Death Punch (R)  
6\. Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)- Vertical Horizon (R)  
7\. Yes To Heaven- Lana Del Rey (X)  
8\. Sweetness- Jimmy Eat World (R)  
9\. Don't Think Twice - Utada Hikaru (RL)  
10\. Forever...Is A Long Time- Halsey (R)  
11\. Whose Side Are You On- Gas Giants (L)  
12\. Wish You Were Here- Incubus (R)


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello loves and welcome back! I'm happy to be back, I think that little bit of time off has been extraordinary for this fic and for drawing inspiration from different sources.   
This chapter in particular is definitely some experimental writing, alternating between a battle and a love scene. I tossed a shit ton of symbolism into both scenes and while this isn't like normal smut, if you don't like smut and can't even get on board with this different style of writing it, I would highly advise at least paying attention to the dialogue.  
You know what, pay attention to the dialogue no matter what   
Enjoy ;)

XLIV.

There are nights I cling with bone white grip to remember. There are days impossible to forget, stuck to the pages of my mind like an inkblot. 

We take predatory steps onto the green in front of us, ancient architecture threatening to crumble beneath six steely sets of eyes. Elrena pulls her sleeves up, frown stretching across her features, shoulders curling back. Emyd rocks on the balls of his feet, muttering the plan in clipped increments until Elrena turns around and demands he shut up. Then he just mutters it quieter. 

Step One: Enter the school, infiltrate and cause a distraction

Step Two: Keep Ven, Terra and especially Aqua occupied, no matter what the cost. If necessary, Ludor can trap the students, the children Aqua’s recruited, into cards until the most brutal bits of the fight have been waged.

Step Three: Leave an opening for Emyd and Elrena, through Vanitas, we’re already aware of where the Land of Departure’s Keyhole resides, it should be a straight shot into the world’s heart for one of them, while the other parries. Emyd is steadfast, Elrena is efficient, although I’m quite aware she’s unnerved by the partnership, there’s no place to deny that these two are effective separately and unstoppable together. 

Step Four: Watch this stronghold shatter, let the people I used to call friends return home with nothing left to their best laid plans. 

Blood boils up from beneath my skin, moments best left scrubbed away taste like humiliation. I look up at the massive, ivory structures and see embodied, the past I want to tear brick from brick.

Terra’s own failures led him into the dark, funny that Aqua could look me in the eyes and forget that creating an enemy of someone who only wants to level the terrain into something hospitable, is the quickest way to confirm your foe will be wearing a face that makes you soft.

Vanitas’ hungry mouth is pulled into a glutton’s grin, he taps his hands at his side, golden eyes drinking in memories he’d been purposefully left out of, a world he was a blemish on by those who saw extremes as a source of discomfort.

Lauriam is calculated, chin tipped high, blade preparedly already in his hand, tip pressed into the dirt below his feet.

Ludor crosses his arms to his chest, directly at my side. He’s made it no secret this isn’t the fight he predicted to have, but the fact of the matter is I can say the same thing and the wells of my sympathies have run dry.

“Is this what you want?” He asks me maybe for the thousandth time this morning, maybe only the hundred, but I can practically feel his teetering sinking us into the ground. Where was the friend who was so resolved in chasing Xemnas’ cause, and why isn’t he gunning for mine the very same way?

“Of course.” I answer, tipping my head up, willing the building to crumble through sheer force of will. “What else would you expect.”

\--

There’s no hesitation here and now, Luxu’s hips pressing my thighs hard enough to bruise, into the bathroom counter. His hands have mangled my meticulously brushed hair, his lips are a downright onslaught on my throat, raining teeth and tongue and kisses from my jawline to my shoulders, to my breasts and back, worrying the skin at my sternum, biting hard enough to draw blood against my collar bone. Hands knead at the flesh of my waist and light throbs deliciously from every pulse point in my body. My shirt’s on the ground, shoes kicked off, Luxu’s disrobed but his belt sticks to the skin of my thighs in the heat we create, a flurry of hands.

Flurry, not like dancing flames, but like the click, clack, clang of metal chasing metal, of my success, riding one high after another. 

He grabs me by the ribs and slams me back into the mirror, which clatters behind us. And it’s fine, my head and body throb from head to toe and I whispered the words ‘sweet’ and ‘gentle’ when he asked me how I wanted it, but this is deeply, primally satisfying.

I sigh his name, it’s hot and heady on my tongue, a growl emanates from the base of his throat and reverberates down to my bones. He takes one of my hands in his and presses it to the bulge in the front of his pants. 

“Is this what you want?” He huffs, breath hot against my skin. He’s moving too fast for me to keep up with, but I keep chasing him, desperate to rid myself of the static, stagnant air. What do I need stillness for when he can bait me so luxuriously into forgetting the new cuts that blossomed on my skin only hours ago.

“Of course.” I mewl into him, taking my free hand to work down the zipper of my skort. He yanks it out from beneath me hard enough that I have to catch myself on the counter, a cry spilling from my lips, though laughter only follows. I rock myself into him as he descends on me, my tongue tracing a teasing line along his jaw. “What else would you expect?” There’s an undeniable lilt to my voice. He exhales sharply, casts his gloves and belt aside, then curls a hand around the base of my throat. Light shoots out of it, the whole realm and I go completely blind.

\--

There’s a stifling silence as Vanitas throws the doors open and reveals a room I recall from Ventus’ memories, a large, open hallway where Terra and Aqua once took their Mark of Mastery exams, and sure enough, the place is littered with children. Human and not, aged anywhere from seven to fifteen, holding onto an assortment of different blades, ones like Sora’s, ones like Skuld’s, their swords don’t matter, what does is the intention. And with Riku, Terra and Ventus directing, it's only a little too clear.

A phantom memory rings in the back of my mind, desperate to stay drowned out, I shove it down, but despite my best efforts, a voice sneaks through the cracks, a warning that didn’t make sense when I heard it.

‘No one really knows what calls a heart to a Keyblade’ the voice burns the corners of my mind, singeing walls like they’re made of paper, ruined eternally. Now it takes twice as much as it did to beat back the flames as they lick and devour at my thoughts, a wild fire in my tundra. 

No one really knows anything in this realm, beyond the Master himself, but if this many new wielders have been found, it’s like a rush of antibodies to an infection, like twilight itself is calling warriors out, too afraid of total eradication.

“Oh yes,” Vanitas growls, the sound deep and guttural as it finds a boiling point before it even dares fall from his lips. Ventus’ eyes turn to saucers, he looks between all of us, eyes coming back to me between bodies, and I see hurt and betrayal and something left raw inside of me feels every bit, dancing along overly excited nerve endings. A face I haven’t seen in weeks, memories I’ve stomached, again and again. I clench my hands into fists. Vanitas snarls loudly, a shock of brown hair comes up from a crouched position in a group of children. The voice of someone still so young tells them to run and they do, they listen.

Because Sora’s an admirable little hero. Who wouldn’t follow him down?

Vanitas, however, rushes them, only held back when Ven dives in, all betrayed eyes as their Keyblades ring like a gong. Ven’s no match, Vanitas kicks him flat onto his back, emitting a pathetic little grunt, a desperate whine.

“I think you can scream louder than that.” Vanitas leers, taking a step over to Ven. He places a boot on top of his chest and presses. “I said louder!”

But he’s batted off almost immediately by Terra, who looks in no mood to be taking prisoners. Unsurprisingly, Riku is not far behind, he draws his blade as the children flea, looking toward Ludor, toward Lauriam, toward Vanitas. Toward me. 

But not toward Elrena and Emyd, who must at least be in the world’s heart by now. 

“Come on.” I hear Riku gripe, almost under his breath, as though the two words were meant to be a secret kept only to himself. I wonder why, but softer footsteps rain across the ground, and from the other end of the room, Kairi emerges, panting, eyes wide heart almost visibly thudding from beneath her soft skin.

Her jaw drops, I hear her gasp, we meet eyes and something yanks at the edges of my mind, trying to unravel everything.

“Dear Twilight, help me.” She breathes.

I don’t think the same thing, I tell myself. I don’t prod myself with the thought a thousand times until it becomes a habit and a bruise.

\--

“Oh yes.” The open hands that Luxu lays across me while he spreads my thighs, parting seas, are home and heaven and answers entirely to me. There’s a new type of power as I wrap a calf around the back of his neck and draw whim in, his mouth halting him as he sucks the skin of my thigh between his teeth. Red bites paint my flesh, his eye flicks up, gold and promising, I trace a hand across the rise in his cheekbone, an answer in and of itself. 

I like the proof in the colors he brandishes, they’re not so vibrant they burn out that sweet, soft, protective layer like a glaze across my insides. They’re not so anemic I can mistake them for the white scars raised all across my skin. He skims past them, blemishes that are ignored with careful measures. His tongue is flat against my core, hot and sweet and wet, but when I try to draw him closer with my leg, he curls hands around my ankles and chains me to the counter, never once ceasing his ministrations.

Bound like this, it’s electric, writhing in hands that tighten each time I thrash, scraping the skin of my own legs, back arched, eyes screwed shut. Luxu’s all needles and knives, and in between ravishing me, he hums at the skin of my thighs and hips, just so I can feel the moans caught too tight behind his teeth. 

“I think you can scream louder than that.” Luxu taunts as he squeezes up my calf, teasing my clit until I fumble toward a razor’s edge. My hands grope at strands of his hair I’m panting, threatening to fall right over. “I said louder.” He chuckles, breath shooting me up, an impossible spike.

“Come on!” I plead. But there’s pleasant anonymity in being completely ignored by a man whose lust I am completely at the mercy of. These are hands that ignore my request but respond to my body like it’s a harmony, a background noise chasing the melody of his movements. Every staccato sputtering of my hips or legato drawn out cry of his name is nothing he can’t drown out in his own touch, his own movement. He walks his fingers up my calves, traces the tendons at the back of my knees, and with my leg shooting into the air, I come screaming “Dear Twilight, help me!” As I flutter back down.

\--

Kairi can’t handle the way I parry, she can’t keep up with each kiss of my blade as it shrieks into hers. The problem, I realize right away, Kairi’s biggest conundrum is that I know each and every one of her moves before she even makes them and she has no idea how to handle me.

Rueki, who would never hurt her and always corrects her sloppy stance rather than uses it against her, is a thing of the past. The lightning spells, doled out like Halloween candy are what she expects, my Knuckles, she knows how I wield. But she can’t seem to keep up with the rapid fire, back handed bite of my Keyblade, which nips when she defends, which latches on when she attacks. Freckled arms are covered in shallow scratches, and it’s not a problem. It’s not tightening my throat, it’s not ripping my heart apart like wet paper inside of my chest. She’s my adversary now and I should want her to break, should want to take the light straight from her chest and watch her fall apart like she fucking means it.

Kairi grunts, leaping out of the way of an attack, only to have a Frag Grenade batted at her. It activates in the circle of my Keyblade’s hilt, with the Thunder Materia, and with the grenade knocking her onto her ass, my Rolling Thunder lights up the others. Sora, Riku, Terra, Ventus. There are residual gasps, choking on air as it enters their lungs. Kairi’s hands shake, she looks at me with fear in her eyes, honest to goodness fear.

My grip goes slack, my mouth goes dry and out of nowhere, Aqua leaps in and throws me to the ground with enough brutality to have my mouth fill with the taste of my own blood. My head chimes like a bell, whiteness like clouds fills the edges of my sight. 

“Come on, you’ve done enough!” Kairi pleads with me, Aqua’s face is something darker though. There’s no fear, I’m just another darkling for this proud master to put back into the dirt. 

“I forget you’re so delicate sometimes.” She says it because she knows that when rage strikes me hard and hot like an iron, my defenses aren’t what they should be. A fleeting thought burns my mind, a spark that has me narrowing my eyes, regarding the two women in front of me.

“Maybe you should remember who you’re dealing with.” I imagine Backbiter splitting in two, imagine the double edges becoming separate, andLa Luxure reappears in my hand, Backbiter divided. Kairi’s eyes flash, huge, horrified. Steam could rise off of Aqua.

Make me your enemy, I think. Make me a villain, make me something unsalvageable and I will be that bitter taste in the back of their throats for as long as I am still a memory.

I’m an old friend when I charge in. Aqua’s stronger than me, but I’m faster, taking her damage, is just another part of who I am, just more kindling on the fire. Her Keyblade makes contact with my abdomen, I’m seeing fucking spots, but I make sure she is too, with the rapid fire scraping of my Knuckles across every bare, vulnerable inch of skin I can find. Everything that’s soft, every inch of insecurity she ever showed me, I take and I shove back in her face, and maybe I don’t have her on the ground, maybe I don’t even have her shoulders shaking maybe I--

Maybe I’m shaking, maybe I’m watching my attacks do half as much damage as they should, and can’t place why my fists don’t make a proper impact on someone who wants so bad to be my enemy. Kairi dives in on me, crying loudly, my counter strike is fierce, but Kairi’s a better defender than me. My attack hits her and does as much damage as if I were hitting a brick wall…

The walls in my mind splitter, they crack in the molding, leaking and blurring into the way violence and love, sex and war bleed together, so sick and delicious in my mind.

Kairi’s brow buckles, but she smacks me straight in my abdomen, knocking the wind out of me, sending me straight back into the ground. I’m wheezing, but she’s the one who looks so fragile, so unsure.

And I’m not, I know I’m not, this is exactly what I want.

“Please!” She begs.

“You should’ve given me the light when you had the chance.” I snarl, leaping to my feet to deliver another blow. Her eyes turn to saucers, she shoves me hard, putting all of her weight into her blade. I fall onto my ass, but hook my legs around her knees. She crashes into me, planting hands on either side of me, all trembling breath, wavering eyes and parted lips.

She’s never been softer. I could take her light straight from her chest right now, go above and beyond what the Master needed. I could hold her in place and dive into her heart, damn the consequences, I could snatch this light up for myself and run blissfully through the darkness, knowing without a doubt that right here and now, this is done. No more war, no more dark corridors. Just a girl with hate in her eyes and her heart who will never look at me the same. 

She’s still so desperate, I can taste it. She still thinks with the right words or enough good intentions she’ll be bringing me home today, like a stray puppy, finally in loving arms.

“Come on.” She whispers, voice crackling. I’m going to do it, I’m going to put La Luxure right to her heart and steal the light, and it won’t be a problem that her body is flush with mine, it won’t be a problem that she’ll cry and hate me. It won’t be an issue because she didn’t change this, she didn’t save me when it counted and I’m only worth anything if I’m able to be saved in such optimistic eyes. It won’t be an issue at all. “I love you.”

My body goes cold as death, Aqua shoots a water spell that slides me out from beneath Kairi and throws me into a wall. Abruptly, my mouth is filled and my lungs swell, about to burst, and then suddenly I can breathe again, but the air tastes hot and sharp, like shards of glass. My eyes fly wide, my hands shake.

This is an issue.

But then Emyd and Elrena are running back and Elrena flashes me a look, such a quick glance, but so telling. I push myself up onto angry legs and take off running straight past the two women in front of me, Aqua makes a move to latch on, but I teleport away and the gut wrenching doesn’t even register, nothing registers as we dive through the light and watch the traces of the Land of Departure as it blinks out beyond the portal. The six of us are in the grass in Daybreak Town and it doesn’t register that she said ‘love’, present tense. It doesn’t matter that she looked at me with the kind of hope that breaks hearts. It doesn’t matter that she looks at me, still, like without me she can’t eat, and I’m a record skipping in her head, a constant reminder of guilt and failings.

It doesn’t register because I feel that way all the fucking time, but no one cared then and no one cares now, least of all me. 

A thought rises in the eye of the storm in my mind. I should have just fucking killed her. Maybe I should’ve killed the girl I loved--past tense-- most and with her, killed hopes of my return, killed the worry in my head that something terrible is going to happen to her by becoming that something terrible.

These are my hands, and maybe the only way to control the pieces that fall into them is by becoming the hammer myself.

\--

I’m tossed carelessly onto the bedroom floor, a ragdoll before the aftershocks even start to fade. There’s a rush of dizziness, new weight on my hips, gloved hands squeeze my wrists, Luxu’s mouth is a hot, devastating onslaught as it reaches my throat

One hand releases one wrist, he scoops both up in the other, I feel small and it’s energetic, a thousand knives flutter like butterflies inside my stomach. His free hand travels between my legs, I buck straight into him, crying pathetically.

“Come on, you’ve done enough!” I whine. He knows I’m ready, hungry and aching but he likes me better starving, sobbing beneath him just so he can remind me how easy it is to bring me there. 

“I forgot you’re so delicate, sometimes.” He taps at my clit, I lurch, eyes wide and burning. The challenge he has me chasing, inspires me, I twist my hips, his back hits the ground, it’s like every battle we’ve opposed each other in, I take him straight to the floor and savor the heat of a hard body beneath me, all taut muscle and grizzled scars. I tear open his coat, yank his belt brutally off of him and tug at his zipper, each movement demanding he finish the job for me. I bite his neck and it’s a strike, I roll my hips into his throbbing cock and it’s a counter. His breath is hot as he works his trousers down and it’s all the same delight, the cause and effect of exchanging blows, only this time, I’m not watching my attacks mean nothing.

When I kiss him, there’s spark, always spark, it makes him moan a little, the soft tingles of lightning on my tongue as it brushes his lips.

“Maybe you should remember who you’re dealing with.” I whisper into his kiss. He doesn’t, he’s not going to, I pull away and he traces my face like I’m some sort of doll, fragile but exhilarating to play with. Like I’m something porcelain it’s taboo to touch. That’s fine though, I think I prefer it when this is wicked and sinful.

I draw his hand down, toward my throat, toward pulse points hungry for another hit. He knows what I want, I know he does, but he chuckles and squeezes my throat until his fingers leave imprints and I’m choking in wanton desperation.

He drags his cock across my entrance, but I shift away.

“Come on.” He demands, but I grin as his hands fall from my neck so he can force my hips back down.

“You should’ve given me the light when you had the chance.” I tease, brushing wetness onto him.

He laughs loudly and kisses my skin. 

“Please?” He doesn’t mean please, he means now, but this is such a fun game we’re playing, I sink down onto him and throw my head back, moaning when he suspends us in the air.

I’m floating, I’m weightless, I’m eternal.

“I love you.” I sigh, though I’m too lost to process how much I mean it this time, because every time I say it, I know it holds different weight. Right now I love that he’s a set of fingers in my mouth and a hand around my throat. The first time I said it, I loved that my hands and heart were at their filthiest, my mind filled with unending static, and he still hand the good sense to put a leash on me and claim me as his own when I came crawling back like some kind of wretched animal.

I think across the board, I love that I’m going to take the world apart brick by brick and he’s proud of the wrecking ball I have become. I think that I love feeling like a shotgun and need someone made of pure ammunition like him. I think I love someone who doesn’t want me to be good or just or moral, doesn’t care about the means, but just wants to cause an explosion with me.

I’m certain I love the fact that the woman I was would never have endured this unmoving, unflinching, vapid affair I’m spiralling in. The woman I was could never have fallen asleep at night, knowing that suspended this high, there was nothing fulfilling beneath.

That’s the thing about being weightless, there’s so much further to crash when the spell wears off.

It always does, he sleeps soundly and I don’t even bother staring at the ceiling. I shower, redress, and roam the halls like some sort of insane phantom.

If I don’t stop moving today can’t chase me, the pleading in gentle indigo eyes can’t catch me.

I burst through the doors of the castle, out into what I think will be a lonely night, where I can look up at the few stars that still freckle the sky.

Vanitas’ eyes find mine in the stillness of the night. He crosses his arms, sitting out on the front lawn, hunched over. He only considers me for a matter of seconds before he turns to look, with persistence, out toward the horizon, like he can will the sun to rise through sheer force of will.

“You okay?” I ask, voice soft as it cuts through the air. It’s almost a sin, to speak in any volumes at this time of the night, when even this world is still, beyond those of us who can’t stop for a second, can’t let the nightmares catch up. I look at a fresh wound on his forearm, I know if he asked, he’ll tell me Ven did it, even if it isn’t the truth. If Ventus is the one harming him, it’s only self mutilation, it’s not weakness, really it isn’t. 

I sink down in the grass, which is cold and dewy, beside him. He stiffens up, so I just set a hand on his wrist, and we linger, letting the chill sink down past our skin for a moment. There’s something about the gentleness of the moment, of my fingertips as they trace the raised hairs on his arm that almost begs me to replay the day, to reconsider. It’s a voice of weakness, it’s something meek and tiny and shameful. It’s my still undead optimism, trying to rear her ugly head, like I can still have the things I want and this mess can still sort itself out. Realism is removing the blinders, by nature it’s supposed to hurt.

It’s not like I was pulling punches on Kairi and it’s not like I wasn’t. It’s not like she’s more than an adversary, and if I keep giving her this gold standard in my own mind, she’s going to keep weighing me down. All pretty redheads with jewel toned eyes are going to.

Whatever happens to her doesn’t have to be shackles on me, I need her light, that’s all. I’m no less a crusader for keeping her alive, I’m no more a monster for thinking that if I could break her in two, it would set me free. I hate the weight of my thoughts as they settle down like dust and ash and debris. 

I hate that I miss her so bad it stings, worse than maybe the wound on Vanitas’ arm.

“You wanna talk?” I ask him, brows raising. He snorts, mouth pulling into something displeased and dark. I chew on my lips and wait for him to leave me behind. 

It isn’t until the sun rises that he does.

Different footsteps echo out onto the lawn, crunching down on the grass behind me. I turn and find a hooded figure approaching. He would know, I think. At the edges of his heart, maybe mine is as loud as Vanitas’, avoiding the easing of the mind like it is some type of plague.

“You okay?” The Master asks me, voice gentle, but, like I’ve thought for the last two weeks, like I’ve realized in the best calculated steps I’ve taken in my life, there is a correct answer. 

This time, I don’t know it, this time, every straw is the short one, so I just smile and shrug and turn back to the sun as it starts to usher out the safety of the night.

“You wanna talk?” The Master asks. 

That one has an easy answer. I rise out of the tenderness of the early morning air and follow him now, out into the ark.


	46. Chapter 46

XLV.

Inside the ark is cold, arctic and contains the same breathless sensation as a vacuum. I set a hand to my chest, I can see my breath, my eyes adjust to the darkness in the room. The Master flips a switch, bright sterile light pierces the room, so intense I have to squint my eyes.

The room is adorned in the same golds that swirl inside the castle, but otherwise the room is rather sterile, almost reminiscent of Castle Oblivion. It all tastes a little too familiar, I cross my arms to my chest and tap my foot to the ground, eyes tracing the glass that lines the walls, from the floor to the massive ceiling. 

Only it isn’t glass, they’re pods. Like the one from Ven and Vanitas’ memories, that the Dandelions traveled forward in, like the one Sora awoke from after Naminé’s recovery of his memories, like the one Sora breezed past, that Princesses of Heart were trapped inside when Radiant Garden was Hollow Bastion and Kairi’s heart hung in the balance. The Master wasn’t kidding when he said he was drawing Keybearers past, forward in time. Empty replica shells sit inside the pods, staring blank and vacantly toward us, sending chills up and down my spine that have nothing to do with the frigidity. 

Looks like Even’s research notes weren’t going to waste, guess the Foretellers do something when I’m building their foundation, after all. 

“How’d you make them?” I ask, eyes darting around, to maybe a hundred vessels, prepped and primed, mass produced in ways that Even did not even attempt.

“The scientist uses a lot of magic. That’s our specialty.” The Master tells me, footsteps echoing as he treds back from the switch, to me. “See that?” I don’t know how expects me not to, it’s a massive pod in the middle of the room, with wires connected to the others. “That’s the tap into Kingdom Hearts itself.”

“And you’re using that to power the replicas?” I ask, brow coming together. “But won’t that drain from the light source we’ve already created?”

“Not if all we’re doing is tapping into the darkness.” He tells me. “We power these replicas with darkness and they’ll just turn back into replicas once we complete the purge of the realm.”

“But how do we figure out how to only tap into the darkness?” I look at the gold adorning the floors, my mouth twisting, my eyes narrowing.

“I think you’ve already answered your own question.” I hear the amusement blatant as it laces the Master’s tone. I take steps around the gold at the edges, looking at the circle around me, at the pods again, at the Master. 

“We’re gonna need dark Materia.” I cross my arms to my chest. “A lot of it, otherwise it’s going to be a bitch to shuttle darkness on its own.”

“Well what if I told you I already had Elrena take care of it?” The Master teases. A spark ignites in my eye, I turn to him, grin curling up at the edge of my face.

“It’s gonna be hellish, trying to draw up something that can channel this much energy… I’m gonna have to create some sort of chain reaction, maybe set things off with a series of bombs…” I’m thinking aloud, but my hands are on my hips now, I’m walking around, looking over the room, wondering if I have a marker or something to scrawl across the floor with, on me, idea after idea pops up in my mind and it almost feels like mania. 

“Hmmm…” The Master pointedly taps his hand against his forearm, I’m obviously being baited, but I turn and lift an eyebrow. “Just thought you’d be a little more hung up is all.” He offers, I roll my eyes. “Well, you were hoping for an outcome that didn’t mean battling your friends.”

“Lucky then that they’re not my friends anymore.” I say flatly. “You know, this is going to be just as much magic as it is alchemy, you’re asking a lot.”

“I get the feeling you’re up for the task.” He’s right. I’m rocking back on my heels, avoiding looking at him, as though if he stares too long he’ll find the chink of weak armor I’ve not yet replaced. “How’ve you been? Since you went home.”

“Productive.” I say, quickly, and I don’t necessarily regret the show I put on, storming into a meeting I wasn’t invited to, to lay all of my insecurities on Luxu and demand affection in return. Snapping back at Aced was cathartic. But too little sleep and the image of Kairi’s eyes, burned into my mind, the whimpering of her voice as she said ‘I love you’, is a hindrance, a liability. 

“No sugar, how’ve you been?” He asks me like he really means it, my face twists. I’m not a child looking for a father figure, looking for some older, wiser man to take control of my life and lead my stray form around in search of direction. I was the one who took care of Del and Amaya, I spent so little time with parents in my life, one of the few constants in my world is defying courses others lay out for me. I’m not getting snared in the mousetrap that is this caricature of fatherly love.

I could find that in Cid but I… No, he’ll forgive me. Whatever happens, I will have Cid to go home too. I guess the question will be who I am when I see him next, but whatever it is, the loose, decaying ends of my life will be charred, and I’ll be the one trailblazing that path.

“Hey, I get it.” He tells me, breaking the silence, but I get the distinct feeling that whatever he says he ‘gets’, he doesn’t. “Every choice feels like severing something, you’re wondering which one is right, who is worth losing, who you can stomach never touching or talking to or being close to again.”

I wrap my covered hands around the tops of my arms and decide to keep pretending it has everything to do with the cold. I take a breath and rub up and down my prickling skin.

“Not all possibilities began with such a clear route, sugar. I already told you, I had to lose myself to find this future. The others don’t remember what happened in the times I traveled backwards to fix a mess I made. Not Luxu, not Ira, not Ava. But I remember. I remember seeing a world where I failed so catastrophically that not only did the realm end up in darkness, my family vanished and I couldn’t get them back until I rewound to my own birth. Of all the things to lose, the ones you love is the cruelest punishment.” He recalls, I turn away, hating the burning in my face and the splintering inside of me. There’s not a crack there unless I allow there to be, my mentality won’t fracture unless I allow it, I’m the one in control, I remind myself. My logical mind, my intellectual self is in control, not this emotional dumpster fire I left behind in Twilight Town who thinks she is allowed to come back because of three sweet words uttered by a pretty redhead with the sea in her eyes. “You’re allowed to admit you’ve loved and lost, you know. That’s not weakness.”

“I don’t want to have loved or lost.” I admit, drawing a line with the tip of my boot, on the floor. I open up the pouch attached to my belt, fumble around and pull out a marker. Then I crouch on the floor and start drawing, eyes focused on the ceramic beneath me. “I’d rather chalk the past few years up as a necessary mistake to learn that my mind really is the only thing I can trust.” 

“Do you remember what I said, about the ugly truth of losing Ava?” To my surprise, the Master sits on a patch of swirling gold just outside the massive array I’ve started detailing, hands splayed out on either side of his crossed legs. I raise my eyebrows and stop drawing for just a second, but the gesture of one hand resumes my actions, I take a knee and keep drawing.

“Of course I do, you said it was hard on everyone to talk about.”

“It’s hard on the others. But I’ve seen every option, sugar. I saw every possibility, lived every opportunity, tasted every consequence. No matter how we try, every choice has an adverse effect. By nature, we seek out the paths with the fewest, easiest to stomach consequences. But sometimes those paths don’t lead to where we want, sometimes a world with no consequences is like being on a treadmill, and while we feel every bit of the effort, we make no progress. We’re stuck in reverse, falling upward.” The Master says as I draw, one curly sigil after another, old memories surfacing. I think of the times I was told I had latent magic in my veins, I think of the times I was told abilities I hadn’t uncovered lived beneath the surface, and I wonder how much actually built up to now and how much I’m just convincing myself I feel.

“Was losing Ava the only way?” I look up, hair still flopping in my face. 

“It was the only way that kept the others alive.” The Master admits, taking on a suddenly crestfallen tone. I stop drawing and sink back down onto my butt, curling my legs up into my chest. I lean against the top of my thighs, recap my marker and set it down, listening to the sound of it clattering against the ground. “If I lost Luxu, I lost you, so he had to make it. Ira and Aced almost always went down together, and if Gula or Ava lost their lives, their older siblings would try to avenge them. It became a catch of just simply how do I stop them all from dying?” The Master sighs. So Ava is alive. Maybe suffering a fate worse than death, but still alive.

“They seem appreciative, at least.” Which is more than I can say about how my intentions started and what they’ve led to. 

“They are.” The Master nods, which I can see in the sway of the fabric of his hood. “But they didn’t see what I did, the outcomes I lived through. They know that their lives were the reward of the sacrifice I made. But they also know the glue that held them together no longer does. We don’t fit together the same way without Ava. But we don’t make it out with her.”

“Couldn’t one of you just bring the other back if one were to die? Like Luxu brought back the others?” I ask.The Master chuckles, low and deep.

“There are conditions that need to be met for that.” He tells me, I raise an eyebrow. “Curiosity kills the cat, sugar. Ava turning her back was the cost of life. Life and death, love and hate, they’re each other’s biggest tolls. Ava had her purpose, I gave her a problem to solve and kept her away from the others, kept her on her own wings as long as I could, knowing she would need to one day fly away. You can see a future a thousand times though, but it still doesn’t prepare you when you run into traces of the things you left behind.”

I grip the edge of my ankle, squeezing it like I’m clutching my own hand, like someone is holding me, reassuring me. My downward gaze falls completely.

“I wasn’t trying to hold back, I don’t know if they’re training harder, maybe I should’ve just stuck to my Keyblade.” I whisper. “But I thought it would take them by surprise, and I know it didn’t but… I thought about killing Kai--the final princess. Icould’ve killed the past with her, I could’ve killed who I used to be, I could’ve gotten the fuck over myself and not had to live with those sweet memories tasting so bitter.”

“You can’t get rid of memories, sugar.” He tells me. “Ava could, that was a fun little trick she learned. But it didn’t stop the Dandelions from remembering; the things most important to us resurface whether or not we want them to.”

“Then maybe it would stop the others from looking at me like I’m some sad thing that needs to be saved.” Though it’s not better to see those like Aqua, who have so thoroughly moved me into the enemy category. It’s different, but maybe I can stomach the hate better than the guilt.

“Well, you can’t kill a Princess of Heart and keep their light around. Natural causes are one thing, the light just gets shuttled to the next available source, kind of like that Sora kid getting his Keyblade. But the light needs to be gifted or passed on naturally, otherwise it just...breaks apart.” He tells me, and I guess my wide eyed expression must convey the shock I feel, because he responds immediately. “Well if darkness can be purged, why not light too? It’s always been harder to maintain that glimmer.”

“Guess it was naive of me to think it couldn’t be. But what about Kairi then? She was unnaturally killed, but she came back and was still a Princess of Heart.” And saying her name has about the same quality on my mind as nails down a chalkboard. 

“Her rebirth was a unique case. The power of waking is very special. It’s a crying shame Master Yen Sid didn’t give the boy proper guidelines on how to use it.” The Master says to me and I nod, brow furrowing.

“I found that strange too, I know Sora just took it in stride, but to be told over and over again that he had to find some sort of power, when it was really an ability he just had to want bad enough seemed a little damn ridiculous and convoluted to me.” I agree. “I guess that’s probably why I’m here. You actually tell me what’s going on.”

“Because you’re a force to be reckoned with, anyone who forgets that is at a serious disadvantage. You are the rawest bundle of emotions I’ve ever experienced in a human being, and that is untapped power, it’s constant motivation.”

“It’s lack of focus, and most people don’t like how much of a wildcard it makes me.” I admit.

“Most people forget in all that passion, that you’re smart. So tell me, sugar, do you feel like you’re walking on a treadmill, just not going anywhere despite the effort?” He asks and I make a face.

“No.” Maybe for the first time since Sora’s appearance in Transmite City sent me spiralling into this world of light and dark and Heartless and Nobodies and hearts and souls. “No, I can see tangible progress.”

“What about your strength? You feel good about where you’re at?” He asks, and I guess so, because I am competent with my Keyblade, and maybe I can’t fend Aqua off with it perfectly, but I can hold my own against her, against a Master, without falling immediately. Maybe there’s nothing to do with me pulling punches or losing motivation, maybe the people I used to share a home with are training at least as hard as me. 

I can morph my weapon into an old one, I can do alchemy with half the necessary components thanks to Backbiter. I did fifth tier magic and I only was rendered imobile, I didn’t die or even lose consciousness. So I nod, gripping my ankle a little tighter, forcing a little more reassurance under my skin.

“Of all the paths you could’ve taken to know that decay was necessary, but that you are capable of choosing the hurt to those who used to form your world, does this feel worth it?” He asks, and I know there is a correct answer, but I also know I don’t need to be dragged into this one, kicking and screaming. 

“Yeah. I guess I’d rather have to rebuild in a realm I want to live in, on connections I tied up myself.” I agree. 

“And you did. Remember, you were dealt a hand, but you played the cards. A lot of human beings are happy to curl up into the first thing near them that will take control and the weight of burden off their shoulder. You consistently haven’t. You should be proud of that.”

Maybe I don’t need the feigned love of a father figure, but having a mentor remind me, in bite sized bits, that I did choose this path and that although the motives are gone, the reasons are still more than valid, might be exactly what I require.

My eyes finally flick up, the smile on my face is uneasy, but it’s genuine. 

“It doesn’t have to be all life and death, or burning the past to the ground. But if it is, don’t ever forget that the power to choose those things is in your hand. You worked and sacrificed for all of that. But that’s why you were born to be something extraordinary.” 

And maybe I want to be extraordinary so bad, maybe I want to be praised deep into my bones, not just in the throes of sex or war, but just for the things that make me who I am. Maybe I was shuttled around into other people’s choices and other people’s dilemmas for so long that it’s hard to remember that this isn’t a problem, it’s just the climax to my own story.

Maybe I don’t have to be so hard and cold like marble all the time. 

Lauriam mentioned where he believed my strength resided, I know where my strength lied once before--and I still can’t think his name or give it power, or imagine green eyes or seasalt ice cream or dancing in a monsoon--maybe there is merit to what the Master is saying though. Maybe being raw, maybe finally being unchained is what I’ve needed and have been deprived of so thoroughly these past few years.

“Can I have another mission?” I ask, brow coming together.

“You don’t wanna finish this?” He asks, gesturing to the half drawn glyph on the ground, I shake my head.

“No, this is boring, I’ve already solved it. I can fill it in later.” I grin, catlike and with more spark than I’ve felt in weeks. 

“Of course you have. Just get it by the end of the month.” He ruffles my hair, using it as a crutch to stand up, like I’m some precious little scamp. I guess feeling like the emotional equivalent to antiseptic means I really don’t mind as much. Here I am, once again, chasing one cathartic high after another. What a wonderful world, once eternity feels like this.

“Why the end of the month?” I ask.

“Cuz we’re on crunch time. That’s when we’ll be done purging the worlds, that’s when our Twilights will decide it’s time to break through the barrier and pay us a visit.” The inside of my mouth goes sour. That’s two and a half weeks. How the fuck am I supposed to--

By remembering these are my hands and my choices and I can’t spend a lifetime frozen on a ladder, falling in reverse.

“You okay?” He asks me as I rise to my feet and this time I deign him an answer.

“Well I’m the one in control of if I am or not.” And there was once a time I used this tactic to control my anxiety again. I forgot how much I live for both hands on the wheel. “I’ll be fine, this is still the best thing I could be doing.”

“Well, I was going to give Vanitas the next mission, it’s not going to be a fun one for you.” The Master informs me. My face doesn’t fall. “In fact, I was going to keep you around here until the storm passed through.”

“Storm?” I raise my eyebrows.

“Daybreak Town gets nasty rain about once a year, for sometimes weeks on end. Have you looked at the clouds lately? They’re pretty nasty. This one should only last about ten days, but you’ve worked overtime, I was just going to have you stick around here, do some drawing, lay low.” The Master offers.

“Hasn’t anyone told you, I’m the worst storm you’ve ever seen.” But I realize who referred to me as a hurricane in the first place and promptly want to scrub the memory from my consciousness. He won’t leave though, red hair, green eyes, warm hands, open heart. “ Besides, I probably would’ve brought Vanitas along with me anyway, he’s a freight train. And none of these missions are fun for me. But I didn’t choose this route cuz it was fun or easy. I just understand now how necessary I truly am.”

The Master is solid for a moment, unwavering and I wonder what I could have possibly said wrong, but then he chuckles, low and soft

“Transmute City.” 

There’s a bite, teeth around my heart.

“It’s just a place I lived. I’ve lived in a lot of places.” I say.

He pats my head as he leaves the ark. When I follow, I’m met with tiny droplets all over my skin.


	47. Chapter 47

XLVI.

“What do you want?” Vanitas is grumpy and surly and bleary eyed. He clearly hasn’t even tried to get to sleep, he’s all but dug himself a hole, pacing across the plush of his carpet. There’s an assortment of books sprawled across the floor, he’s now sitting in a bed that clearly hasn’t been made in weeks--possibly ever. The place is a fucking wreck, but this type of disaster is a little too easy to make myself comfortable in.

“We’ve got another mission.” I tell him.

“And you’re bugging me for this, because…” He plops down at the foot of his bed, I wonder if his face ever gets tired of looking so mangled and miserable, but then I remember my own sarcastic tendencies are hardly better.

“Because you’re the only one I know is up and I’m raring to go.” I admit, crossing my arms to my chest, contemplating the marks my heels leave in the carpeting. Vanitas seems interested in this as well; his eyes narrow, then soften, then turn to a squint again.

“Maybe I was going to sleep.” Or maybe he wants to argue for the sake of arguing.

“You can sit around all day if you want, I was giving you an excuse to go out and hit something, because I’m sure you want to.” I roll my eyes. He darts a leg out from underneath himself so quick, I miss it and crash straight into the floor, barely bracing myself on my elbows. He climbs down off the bed and stands just at my hips, before squatting down, sinking onto his haunches. The stare he regards me with is predatory. Not what I’d expect from someone who I spent the early morning tracing shapes with the pads of my fingers on their forearms, but certainly not off course for Vanitas.

“I could just hit you.” He reminds me, like we’re both not abundantly clear of the possibility. My face doesn’t break from the practiced neutrality though. Instead, I lean forward, getting closer to him than I know he likes.

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in it if we both like seeing how much I can bleed, hmm?” I ask. He snarls, like some sort of caged beast, pushes himself away from me by pressing palms into my shoulders and then climbs off completely, grabbing his boots and shoving his bare feet into them. “Your feet are gonna stink if you do that.”

“Well maybe then you won’t get so close to me.” He counters.

“No, I’ll still suck your toes, love.” I absolutely won’t, but the look he sends me is enough thrill for several lifetimes. A devil’s grin appears on my lips, I sit up, putting my elbow to my knee, resting my chin in my hand.

“Elrena’s right, you’ve turned into a fucking psychopath.” He makes a face.

“She said religious zealot, but don’t worry, we’re good now.” I assure him, like I’m under the impression that he gives a shit.

“It was pretty obvious that you two were gonna get back to kissing each other’s asses.” Though I’d hardly call what Elrena and I do, ass kissing. “But I still think you should be a lot more disgusted with yourself.” I am, I think to tell him, but I wipe clean that stray thought like the blemish it is. An afterthought lingering from a different life where morality and overthinking were the only prominent features. “I’m still physically seventeen.”

“No, actually, you are not. Ven turned eighteen just about a week ago.” I say rather confidently. Vanitas’ eyes flash, he turns to look at the calendar on his wall and curses under his breath.

I scream internally, it’s funny how good I’ve gotten at that when screaming doesn’t change a thing anyway.

The calendar is a stinging reminder of the age I’ve already felt in my bones. Long gone are the days when I was a cute teenager, fumbling through mistakes and it was endearing cuz I was just young and I was just a kid.

I turned twenty two only a few days ago, no one noticed a thing.

“My birthday was three days ago.” I murmur, almost like I didn’t mean to say it, but then again maybe I did because maybe I want someone to hear.

“Yeah, and I’m sure Xigbar made some sort of elaborate show about it.” Vanitas rolls his eyes, but quite the contrary. I’m not sure Luxu knew it was my birthday.

For lifetimes spent watching, I’m rubbed raw by this unfamiliarity, this spot on his otherwise perfect track record of knowing me remarkable well. But I’m not second guessing what else he missed along the way because there was another who didn’t know my birthday until years into knowing him and even then, he mistook it for the day I became a Nobody--because I did too.

It’s just a day, and I celebrated two different ones for so long in my life that it doesn’t matter. There will be plenty of celebrations to be had when the world is tilted on its proper axis, I’m not jilted. Not even a little.

“We’re going to Transmute City, you wanna open up a portal or am I taking us through darkness?” I ask. Vanitas scoffs, making a ‘tcch’ sound with his tongue. 

“You’re destroying your home world?” He asks. I roll my eyes.

“It’s a place I lived in, I lived in a lot of places.” I repeat, mostly for myself and that screeching little remnant in my mind, that only shuts up with proper brightness shoved between her lips. 

“You gonna cry when we have to fight all your friends again?” He taunts. “Thought for sure you’d have a conniption, fighting your princess.”

“She’s not my princess and they’re not my friends.” I say harshly, venom spilling from my mouth. “People like us don’t get friends like that, at best we’re pet projects until they decide that they for sure cannot fix us.” I don’t need to say what we are at our worst. Vanitas and I are already rather comfortable in that role.

He waves a hand, looks at me with mild dissatisfaction and leaps into the portal without another word.

\--

Transmute City is just another source of complete dissatisfaction. Cold, made of cruel disposition and anonymous huts and buildings. I’m not going to miss the flickering street lamps, the graffitti Amaya, Del and I etched into the structures for our makeshift Heartless bombs, I won’t even miss the blacked out lights in my old house or in the Gummi Repair Shop.

It’s a good thing though that Amaya is clearly not here, nor Del, nor Lucidia, but I remind myself that it shouldn’t matter, that I’m not responsible for the choices any of them make and should be satisfied by the destruction cast by my own hand. Still...that remnant, the phantom in my chest reminds me of the lengths I went to keep Del and Amaya safe from the world they found me in.

If they had just listened, what would be different, where would they be, would they be here, on the receiving end of my attack--

Would I be in a warmer home, sitting between scalding hot arms, safe and sound?

I don’t think so, and I shake away the sensation, as well as his name, which is whispered at the corners of my mind and then never again, I decide. If I let it in, I let all of him in, and everything inside me sinks in, pitch black, with no end, no bottom, no safe foundation to rebuild on.

Vanitas looks at me, unflinching in the cold, the only tell he has that shows me he’s unused to these temperatures, is that he sets his jaw a little too tight. Me, I’m not dressed for this weather, but the biting air keeps my senses trained, and that’s just the point.

“Where’s the Keyhole?” Vanitas asks me, trying to hide the way his teeth chatter.

For an instant, there’s no red in my hair or scars on my body and my eyes are fresh and new and young. I’m leading a boy who looks just like this but younger, with brown hair and blue eyes, through clusters of Heartless attacks. I’m unsure, but with the sort of plucky enthusiasm only fairy tales are capable of, we find our way by lucky accident, to the Keyhole.

It’s just a moment, but it blurs in my vision, and I realize my eyes are damp only when hot tears stream down my cheeks. Vanitas blanches, not expecting this, he opens his mouth, probably to say something vile to me, but closes it, wearing the same confusion I do. Quickly, so I can forget they were there in the first place, I push the traces off my cheekbones and shake my head.

“This way, come on.” We leave the past in our footsteps, the two of us sprinting, challenging each other to a paces only the other can keep up with. I fish around my pocket for a grenade, crank my arm back and send it sailing as we come across the old building that Sora and I found the Keyhole in, entire lifetimes ago. The grenade shatters the glass, it’s utterly useless, but the blaze of the explosion keeps both Vanitas and I bright eyed, stealing a glance at each other, something desperate, like yanking at the edges of a parent’s sleeve.

We are approximately fifty footsteps away from the Keyhole. This is when all hell breaks loose.

“Dammit.” I hear the disappointed curse of a too familiar voice and am still unable to control the physiological reaction. 

From the ashes, two blond heads appear, a shock of black hair follows behind. Two sets of hands nervously grip Keyblades, the hands dual wielding do not shake. I do though. Ice pumps, broken and scraping like a sculpture breaking inside of me as Del, Roxas and Xion emerge. Vanitas’ eyes find me for the briefest fraction of a second. And then, sensing my falter, he flies, charging straight into the trio, spiky Keyblade piercing forward immediately. He makes a move for Del, who is shockingly quick to get away, and then is smashed by Xion as punishment. Vanitas kicks her right in the stomach, Xion doubles over, wailing loudly. Roxas doesn’t waste his time, he crashes straight into Vanitas but he looks at me, looks straight through me. I can feel the type of uncouth knocking at the edges of my empathy link that came around when Sora tried to read me, and just like then, I shove him away. Backbiter appears in my hand, this aches, I know it’s meant to.

With everything inside of me, I muster up all the hate, all the discord that ever came in my relationship with him and Xion and the complex, conflicted hell I dwelled in too long because of their ties to Sora.

I was made to suffer, I’m always the one made to suffer, maybe in that I can find new motivation.

I charge in, Roxas meets me straight in the middle and the sound of our blades flailing into each other is deafening. My head throbs, he snakes his second blade out, aiming for my middle, but I’m quicker than him. I adjust where my weight is at against Backbiter and leap up high, onto his second blade, before tumbling forward, tucking and rolling in the air so that I come out behind him. And with that, I hit the ground running, sprinting so fast that my legs feel torn apart, that I can already feel the strain of yesterday’s endeavors. 

Something hard and heavy hits my back just as I make it through the shattered doors. I crash to the ground, the wind rips out of me, I roll onto my back, gasping and come face to face with Del, who has his huge, clunky Keyblade pointed straight at my chest.

“Our home, Rueki?” He demands, pressing his Keyblade down against my chest, though his trembling grip and gleaming eyes don’t do him any favors. “How could you, our home?” His voice reaches a fever pitch, shattering on the top note. I curl up my legs, snatch the tip of his blade between my thighs and pull it straight out of his hand.

“Get the fuck out, you’ve never belonged in this, just go to Radiant Garden, it’s safe.” And this feels better than contemplating murder, this doesn’t have my pulse begging my mind for silence, this isn’t ripping my hear as easily as paper. 

“Never belonged in this?” His eyes go wide, like I’ve personally attacked him. I draw Backbiter back into my hands from where it clattered on the floor, he recalls his Keyblade. “Why do you always have to do shit like this? Why do you always have to be the only one in your life that you think can move things forward?”

“Because I always am, Del!” I scream. Malice drives my blade into his, Del’s a better defender than I am, parrying quickly against my attack, no matter how many times I strike back--and I strike back so hard, the bones in my arms, all the way up to my shoulders feel the vibration. I won’t have to look at anyone this time and say I didn’t do my damdest, I’m not holding back, I swear I’m fucking not. “Because if I didn’t always move things forward we’d never have opened the shop, we’d never have gotten a place, we’d still be sitting in this fucking hole barely scraping by!” We’d still have hands over our eyes. “We’d still be scared of the damn darkness all over this place!”

“Sora fixed that!” Del protests, pushing me back into the building, with the quick jabbing of his blade. In the state my adrenaline has me in, I know I should be quicker, but I barely make it out of his line of attack.

“Because I helped him!” I remind him, knowing full well I just want to shout at him, throw my blade to the ground and scream until he gets it. No one ever does, though, it doesn’t make a change. “From the very fucking start, I have been the only one okay stomaching the difficult stuff to keep us from going stagnant!”

“You keep yourself from getting comfortable, that’s all you’ve ever done!” Del tries, backing me further, and further. “Fuck, Rueki, you’re my oldest friend! Please, please just give this the hell up and come home! I don’t want to lose you!” 

I freeze up, joints locking on instinct. Maybe Del can hear my heartbeat, maybe it’s only roaring in my ears. Vanitas comes sprinting past us, points his Keyblade and leaps into a massive hole in the ground. Del’s eyes go wide, he makes a move to chase Vanitas into the Keyhole, Roxas and Xion come sailing in and I make the only flighty, desperate move I can think of. I wave a hand and trap the four of us inside a circle of latticed lightning, binding us in its confines, the very same thing I did to Rapunzel. But now I get the distinct feeling I’m supposed to be the scared little princess, inching away from a big bad attacker.

Venom burns right from my eyes, I hold Backbiter a little tighter, Roxas’ shoulder shake, Xion pants, looking miserable and scared and Del--

There’s the distinct feeling of innocence lost as we lock eyes.

“Shit!” Roxas finally curses, stomping his foot into the ground, shaking his head, at ends with the injustice of all of this. “What’s it gonna take to make you come home?” He’s not much for sly pleas, but neither am I and the honesty of it all takes my breath away, slacks my grip on my Keyblade. I know this is a necessary evil, know I can’t fully escape my past or wipe the memories away like they’re written on a chalkboard, but the desperation of it all could make me sick. “I just can’t… I can’t fight you like this, I just want you to come home, this is fucking ridiculous, I don’t even care what you’ve done, you’re my friend, nothing anyone says is going to change that!” Roxas assures me, turning Xion’s face pink. And it dawns on me that she’s heard a similar speech, pleading with her just to stick around, not to go anywhere, not to die.

In their eyes, I realize I’m suffering a fate worse than death, and while that isn’t exactly the grandest of motivators, it does propel me forward, Keyblade pulled back, only to be knocked straight out of my hands by Xion, whose knack for anticipation is uncanny. I recall Backbiter just in time for her to swat at me again, the absolute flurry to which our blades clash in is deafening, sparks could fly, she moves so quick and so relentless and I’m all defenses--my weakest suit. 

Struggling to keep up with her already, I’m unprepared when Del finally dives in, grunting with displeasure as he swings his blade low, toward my legs. Still, it’s the exact break I need. I leap, my jaw connects with Xion’s blade, but it’s truly not so bad. I pop my dislocated jaw back into place, turn Backbiter into La Luxure, then jab straight toward their abdomens, sending them skidding away. 

Roxas doesn’t so much as move, paralyzed by his own conflict. I’m tempted to do the same, but I think of the Master and being on a treadmill, exerting myself and having nothing to show, and I guess there’s not much more I need to do, beyond keep everyone occupied while Vanitas purges this world, but maybe there’s more I want to do. More than anything, I want to end that conflict for my friends, want to spare them the constant disarray of what I am going to be and whether or not I am going to one day come home.

To anyone who hasn’t stomached the intensity of my convictions--myself included--this is a kiss goodbye.

I sail straight on in, cry out a thunder spell and shoot my charged blades at Xion and Del. Del’s quick, he dodges, Xion nearly does, but the blades catch on the side of her arm and she cries out, screaming as her body writhes. Roxas’ eyes search, her to me, her to me. I think he makes a choice, but I don’t think he likes it. He throws a Potion straight at her and comes barrelling at me, one blade for each of mine. 

Where Roxas is passionate, he’s not analytical, he’s not calculating and cunning. Nor is Del who also charges at me, both with much longer reach on their swords. I let them close the distance, holding my breath and when they get just a little too close, I leap in closer, slashing first at Roxas with La Luxure, then whirling around to put a hit on Del. And maybe Del isn’t clever, but he is feisty, he takes my damage, just the way I take damage, but comes out charging, batting at my ribs with the type of force that throws me onto me back, but breaks his balance, sending him toppling onto me.

The world shifts and shakes, as though set on permanent vibration, I watch darkness start to devour, see Vanitas come right out of the Keyhole and I think that distantly I hear him call my name.

There’s no resolve when Del shouts, clambering off of me, toward Roxas and Xion. I banish the thunder spell that bound us and bolt toward the light portal Vanitas must have summoned somewhere along the way. I wheeze and choke and I feel it has so little to do with how I was hit and too much of what to do with who I was hit by.

Why is someone training him, why does someone push that boy that used to be afraid of the dark, that in a phase of brave idiocy, convinced me we should buy booze when we were underaged then proceeded to puke it back up into a frozen river, to be more, to go further. Just let him be, my insides scream, just let it be enough, stop making him into a warrior, I want to compress the both of us back down into children, and for just a moment, be innocent enough for him and me and Amaya to be under a blanket fort, flashlight ignited, dreaming of other worlds.

It’s only a moment because Vanitas takes my arm and nearly rips it out of socket, pulling me through pure blinding light as I watch the world I made home in once upon a time, fall into pitch black. Darkness devours the world in the edges of my mind, hungry, consuming. I’m blinking up at pastel skies when I realize the darkness is something burned into my head, a reality that’s forced to exist through a portal. I don’t have to feel it, I can shut it out when the portal shuts itself.

But there’s a crack, something buckles as my mind pushes too far, too hard. 

It’s like breaking glass, I look around to see who threw stones only to find it’s coming from within.

I throw my hands over my face, the throbbing in my heart is climbing into my throat, creating a new and more intense rhythm with each beat, Vanitas’ voice sounds like it’s underwater. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” He asks me, I can’t decipher that this is the only way he knows to check on my wellbeing. I shake my head, he grabs my wrists, tearing my hands away from the safehold of my face, I whip one back, forming a fist and throw it straight into his jaw.  
His eyes go wide, my hands start to shake.

He takes me straight to the ground and drops an elbow to my nose, it breaks again, and this time I don’t think I want it to heal. I spit blood up at him, he grabs fistfulls of my hair, yanks me up then grounds me again.

And I--

I think I’m dying but not. I think I’m hyper aware of my own life, of the string it hangs on and how tight I hold onto it. How Vanitas severs that control and how much I love when anything in the realm does that and captivates me. 

Lea, Luxu, Kairi, war after war, I run from and chase after them simultaneously and I tell myself I want nothing to do with the things that bind my hands and smash me to the ground, make me taste my own blood, but maybe I do more than anything, because this has me higher than Luxu, this has me memorizing every detail of a life that seems hellbent on escaping me. And maybe it’s made better by the fact that I think this is the only way Vanitas feels like he can center me and he thinks he’s doing a good thing and all I’m capable of is looking a problem in the eye and committing energy to figure out how to solve it.

I feel like I’m drowning when finally he stops hitting me and we both come up for air, me gasping and wheezing, spitting out blood, him coming off of me and back onto his legs, eyes wide and mesmerized like I’m something just shy of a work of art. 

When we look on the ground, two of my teeth are pooled in blood on the grass. I look back up into Vanitas’ eyes, he won’t meet mine. Instead he leaps up faster than the speed of sound, chucks a bottle of something at me and takes off running like his life depends on it.

I look down and see the bottle of Al-Bhed Potion salve.


	48. Chapter 48

XLVII.

“Shit, what happened to you?” Is the romantic, affectionate greeting Luxu meets me with when I come into our--his-- room, clutching a handful of teeth, dripping blood down my chin onto my chest. I cast him a sideways glance, he doesn’t make a move to rise from the chaise beside the massive window, in fact, he barely looks up from the stack of research on his lap. I flash him a finger, signaling that I need a minute and disappear into the bathroom, setting the mess that is my teeth down onto the counter. A quick glance in the mirror nearly makes me heave, but the fortunate fact that my insides have taken on the quality of lead means vomiting is actually not a natural response. I take the Al-Bhed salve out of my pouch, set it beside my teeth and immediately go about rinsing my face off. I ruin a pristine white towel in the process but I’m really unconcerned about it. Rather, I’m particularly annoyed that I’m not going to get this bleeding to stop until the salve is on my gums, and Al-Bhed Potion tastes like a whole special kind of shit. The very taste as it drips onto my tongue is nearly enough to cure that remedy to having a not so sensitive stomach, but I hold down the potential lurch by sucking a breath in through my nose. A quick application of the salve to my stray teeth and the incessant pressing and holding of teeth in place, followed by more layers of salve is enough to at least reattach my teeth. It’ll take another twelve hours worth of not eating or drinking to reroot them. My placement isn't perfect, there’s a gap there that wasn’t before, but the fact that they aren’t distractingly crooked has to count for something. 

I’m cleaning up the mess of blood on the counter with the previously ruined towel when Luxu decides it’s time to stop in and check on me. This includes coming up to me with zero regard for my well being, snaking an arm around my waist and biting a kiss onto my shoulder. I flinch, my body protests, not only sore from last night but from today, and the previous day. My mind still throbs, I still see Del and Roxas and Xion and that devouring darkness.

“Hey.” I say.

“Missed you.” Is all he replies as he starts kissing up my neck. There’s no erection pressed against my ass just yet, but proactively, I wiggle away. He looks at the stain blood has left on my skin, that will probably be there until I have a proper soap and water shower, and thankfully reassess. “Come on squirt, don’t tell me you let Roxas bat you around like that.”

My face gets hot.

“You know where the Master sent me?” I ask, voice low, because how is he actually trying to start something with me if he knows what I had just done.

“Sure, well, I knew he wanted to send you there. Wasn’t sure if you were up to snuff, myself, if I’m being honest, but he seemed pretty confident. And lo and behold, you were successful. Fighting Roxas and Poppet.” A sly grin settles into the edges of his features, I grip the edge of the counter, my wrist pops, I wince. 

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I ask.

“Like I said, wasn’t sure you had the chops to take down your childhood home. Even the Master wasn’t sure if you’d accept the task and he knows everything. Can’t say I’m not impressed. Every day you show me you’re not half as bound as I thought you were. Oh the leaps and bounds you’ve taken, little Rueki.” He takes steps toward me that I can’t decide if are predatory or affectionate, but when he brushes his hand across my cheek, I feel the jarring sensation of unwanted touch. I take his hand in mine and bring it down, setting both of ours on the counter. “So what happened to your face? Roxas really get you that good?” His other hand finds my lower lip, the pad of his thumb draws patterns on my mouth until he decides he actually wants to hear my voice.

“I punched Vanitas in the face, so he put my face into the ground until I lost a couple teeth, then he ran away.” I mumble.

“And don’t tell me, this is after you dragged him along on this homecoming mission with you?” He teases, but I think if I’m being honest, feeling the soft and fragile things inside of me more than I’m fully content to, I’m really not in the mood for a self deprecating chuckle. I just shrug, but Luxu howls out laughing, as animated as I’ve seen him in months. “Come on, squirt, you should know better with him. Even dogs learn after you rub their nose in it enough times!”

And now my face has a wildfire dancing across it. I sweep out and away from him, eyes looking to the shower for a safe escape, but it’ll hardly provide me with a haven. So I steal out of the bathroom, looking anxiously around, tapping my heel against our floors.

Humiliation is bile on my tongue and a noose around my neck. Luxu sets a hand on my arm, it’s all I can do to force myself to remain stationary. 

It’s okay, I assure myself, this is what I want, this is the corner I happily backed myself into, if I can’t make myself swallow this pill, who can?

I can’t will myself to want to take my clothes off though, I can’t will myself to sink to my knees to change the tide of this dialogue. I turn my head, forcing a smile that’s more patronizing than anything.

“Can we just lay down?” I ask, seeing immediately the dissatisfaction on his features. Me too, if I’m being honest, I much prefer him when the only sounds he emits are the strangled cry of curse words and broken moans. What a fucked up train of thought, do better, I order myself. This is the man I love, the one person who is so remarkably like me, it’s like looking into a mirror. No expectations, no hopes, no filling the void that my shattered pieces don’t stretch into. Luxu and I don’t fill anything or cohabitate a single space in my mind and that discomfort is my favorite sensation, or so I remind myself, until it makes sense. “Everything hurts and I’m dying.” I make a face, but push up on my toes and kiss his jawline. 

“A real smooth talker, you are.” He picks me up by the abdomen that’s still sore and maneuvers me down onto the bed, my back to his chest. He’s utterly uninterested though, in the affection of this non sexual intimacy. He’s got a stack of notes on the bedside table and he starts flipping through them. The thing is, I think I want to talk, I think something’s pushing up from inside of me and I need someone to purge it onto.

“I’m scared.” The two words contain the vilest type of weight, but all Luxu does is hum, I chew my lips. “Luxu.” I call his name.

“What are you scared about, little Rueki, I’m not a mind reader.” He gripes, I already want to take the words and shovel them back into my mouth. 

“Nevermind.” I mumble.

“Are you trying to pick a fight? I really don’t know how to tell you this, but that’s not fun to me. I don’t need you going ice princess again after being hot as the sun.” I conceptualize the heat of the sun against my skin, of hot arms that used to hold me, of scalding hands that soothed, of burning lips that would whisper reassuring promises.

They’re lies, I need to remember. Promises so sweet are always tainted by the fact that they never come to fruition.

“Rueki?” Luxu calls my name, demanding a response that I don’t have. I shake my head.

“Just a bad day.” I mutter. He doesn’t ask me what makes it bad, he doesn’t tell me that it’s just one day, he doesn’t even so much as kiss my hair. “Did you know that my birthday was a few days ago?”

“Huh. Guess not.” I think it’s good and honest that he is’t suddenly acting laden with shame, however I think I’d prefer he did. “Happy birthday.”

I think of birthday cakes with seasalt buttercream and yellow scarves and champagne that I wasn’t really interested in drinking. I lick my lips, focusing on the rough edges of the chapped skin.

“Del was in Transmute City.” I finally say.

“That your ex?” Luxu asks, I nod kind of stiffly and rub a hand across my drawn up calf, my palm gentle but cold. Still, there’s something soothing in my own touch, a merciful bandage after the delectable beating Vanitas had to offer me. The two extremes are places I tell myself I have no business returning to, but oh how I can’t help myself. “Tough luck, squirt. But you did your damn job, can’t ask for better.”

I don’t return to polarizing sides just because of the numbness he injects into me, I tell myself. That’s a satisfying enough response, it was my response when the Master inquired about my wellbeing, maybe it’s time I learn from expecting mountains to be moved by a lover. 

“You know, working with Vanitas isn’t all bad. The empathy link’s kind of funny, but I think him being so perceptive to his connection with Ven was good for both of us. It was kind of like he knew exactly what I could handle and exactly what I needed him to do.” And I guess that was cool and satisfying, I guess I can dig myself out of this sinkhole before I am fully consumed by it.

“I could’ve told you that. Your heart’s damn loud, you’re good at foraging connections.” He ruffles my hair. I crack a smile.

“What do you think it’ll be like for us when the war’s done?” I ask, running my hand up my own thigh now, squeezing my flesh reassuringly as he thumbs through papers.

“Fucking grand. Probably won’t leave the bedroom for at least a decade.” He offers, which sounds a lot less exciting than chasing the realm by the tail of a comet, it’s far less explosive than the beautiful future he longed for before we contentedly settled into each other. 

“And after that?” I ask. His face is soft at the corner of my vision. He pats my hand as it comes to a rest on my hip.

“Whatever it is, I’ve got you. That’s all I’ve wanted as long as I can remember.” What a divine admission. I know I can feel this intense too, at least some of the time. Give it that decade of peace, wrapped up in bed, I tell myself, and I’ll be there. Hot and intense burned me out so fast, slow and steady must be capable of winning this time around. “You’re awfully needy, you jonesing for some light?”

“I mean, yeah. But I just miss when you’d tell me stories, that’s all.” I admit. He sets his papers down and scoops me up into his arms. He presses fingertips into my arms and light floods my system, nearly short circuiting me. I tremble back down, maybe minutes, maybe hours later, I’m not really sure. But his arms are still securely around me and I’m marginally less argumentative. “Sorry, I know you’re not the lay around and snuggle type.”

“Eh, you are, I can suffer through once in a great while.” Still, he nips my shoulder, creating a blossom that claims my skin. “So what’s got you all worked up?”

This is Luxu, I remind myself. Luxu who had access to my heart before I was comfortable giving it, Luxu who I confided in when my own home felt insecure, Luxu who heard me tell him under no circumstance would I leave my marriage--green eyes again in my head, red hair between my fingers, my stomach surges hot and intense, it burns down to my toes and up to my hair-- for him, and yet he still hold on hope for me. 

“Kairi told me she loves me. Like present tense. Roxas screamed that he was bringing me home, like that place still was. Xion fought for me. Del didn’t make any of destroying our home easy on me.” And the barriers I put up are paper thin now that I’ve let such small moments in, such fragile happenstances are now plowing me down from inside, demolishing what took strain and ache and effort to put up.

Luxu draws a sharp breath from behind me. He turns over onto his back, releasing me and when I shift to look at him, I see him lying there with his hands in his hair, his brow creased, looking as old as I’ve ever seen him.

“How long are you gonna make me do this, Rueki?” He sighs. My eyes widen, I sit up, ramrod straight, tucking my legs beneath me, coiled up, ready to spring away like a defense mechanism. “It’s like walking a fucking minefield with you, every time you open your mouth, to be frank, it’s really not what I was expecting out of this.”

Every cell in my body seems to respond, seems to stop functioning, seems to cease movement. My lungs go so tight, I’m certain I’m going to collapse right on the spot. Instead, words like projectile vomit spew from my lips, desperate to climb out of the vacuum seal of my insides. 

“My biggest adversaries are the people I used to live with. I just took down the world I grew up in.” I remind him.

“Yeah, who twisted your arm to make you do that?” He lifts an eyebrow

“No one, but it doesn’t mean I don’t need my significant other for some extra support.” My eyes burn as I look at him, willing him to action in our bed, willing him to sit the fuck up and apologize to the peson, the thing he said he wanted so bad for so long. “Dude, that’s part of dating someone.”

“No, that’s what you’ve got your little friends for.” He pushes himself up onto his elbows, he must see me staring at him with an open mouth because finally he grunts and turns to me. “Do I need to remind you how long it’s been? How long I waited to get you where we are now? You really think I wanted to swoop in and pick up someone else's mess?”

“Is that what I am to you?” I ask. “Just a mess that you’ve inherited?”

“You know, you’re fucking nuts.” He tells me, very matter of factly.

“That’s what you said though, that you don’t want to pick up someone’s mess.” I insist.

“Yeah, cuz go figure, I don’t. My entire life leads up to what? Playing cleanup crew over Axel’s screw ups? Drying your tears over the people who screwed you up in the first place? As if. Get over yourself and stop acting like moving on is hard. It’s only tough because you made it out to be.” He waves a dismissive hand at me. My body sparks, we both look down at my hands, which are still buzzing.

“So what? Because you all managed to move on from Ava being in your lives, I’m supposed to just forget any of my past ever happened?” Because I know I can’t do that, the Master himself reiterated that that is not a realistic or successful way for a human being to function. Although Luxu is supposed to be superhuman, although he’s lived at least several centuries longer than me, it’s blatant right now. the emotional impact it’s had on him to not form lasting love, to not develop meaningful relationships until I came along.

“Don’t act like you’re an expert on what happened to Ava, squirt, you wouldn’t be a big fan of hers if you knew where she was hiding.” Luxu rolls his visible eye. “She was my favorite sibling. But I was clear as day with her, what I had to do, how this had to go down. Only a damn lunatic hangs on to something that doesn’t want to be held.”

My hands ball into fists on my thighs, my jaw clenches, I narrow my eyes, assessing the breaths as they leave his chest and flood his lungs. I wait for him to take back the slap in the face or at least pretend he’s got even an ounce of sympathy. Just for long enough where I can curl back up in his arms. Fuck, just for long enough so that I can start taking off his clothes and shut him the fuck up. 

“Maybe you should’ve just minded your business and left me to get taken by darkness in Radiant Garden.” I mumble. 

“Really? That’s what you’re going with? You’d rather have been Xemnas’ little puppet rather than admit that you need to get over the past?” He snorts, almost like this is funny, like I’m some kind of joke to him. Maybe I’m not a joke, but I’m a mess he needs to clean up, a dog that hasn’t been properly trained. 

“You know, I think I’m gonna go.” I twist around and climb out of the bed, not willing to turn around and chance another glance at him.

“Really, pouting now? Real mature.” When I turn around though, Luxu’s back to skimming through notes, like I’m a blip in his radar, like I’m a fluke, an accident he didn’t count on happening. This pisses me off like exponentially more. 

“I mean, wasn’t me growing up just inconvenient to you?” I ask, pursing my lips. “And by the way, I’m still pissed you missed my birthday.” And with that I throw the door open and take off running, legs still burning, but the clapping of my heels against the floor is distractingly cleansing. 

Throwing open the door to my room, a room I haven’t made it a point to sleep in, in a long time, is therapeutic. Stripping down and burying myself beneath blankets that match the colors of flames is cathartic. The dreams I settle into offer more sympathy than the sound of my lover’s venom.

\--

I’m in the grass. My feet are bare and strings are attached to my wrists and ankles, but they’re limp, not propelling me to dance like they’ve been for so long. I take an experimental step forward only to find I’ve crushed a flower beneath my foot. My eyes widen, I crouch down and look the petals over in my hands.

“It’s okay.” A voice behind me assures me. I turn toward a spectre, an angel in a white hooded gown. I can’t see her face, but there’s a serenity in her voice that I trust. She closes the distance between us and sinks to grass beside me, kneeling down. “They’re tougher than they look.”

“I didn’t mean to.” I promise her, the sway of her hood is the only indicator I’m offered of her nodding.

“Storms aren’t inherently destructive, you know? Sometimes the world isn’t ready for a cleanse. But they’re unique in the sense of disasters. In their wake, life always renews.” The angel informs me, shifting her feathery weight on the ground. In front of us, the sun is beginning to set, the way the colors paint the evening sky has me nauseous but she reaches out a gentle, knowing hand.

“I hate sunsets.” I murmur, feeling bitterness roll around in my mouth. “Aren’t you gonna ask me how I can hate them when I don’t get to see the moon and stars until the sun goes down?” I ask.

“No, I understand.” She tells me, smoothing the skirt of her gown. “I used to cry when the leaves would turn color in the fall, because I knew the flowers would decay beneath the winter. But the sun comes back when morning breaks, and flowers revive when spring settles in.”

“Every time I close my eyes, it’s night time. No matter how much light I try to push into the night, it’s still pitch black.” I tell her.

Rain starts to fall around us, soft, chilling, it prickles my skin but I like it, I don’t even mind the rustling of trees or the clouds that obscure the low hanging sun in the sky. 

“Maybe it’s not night. Maybe you’re just still in the middle of the storm.” She offers, though I notice I’m the only one getting wet. “Maybe if you stopped trying to make daylight come, the clouds would part.”

“I want to part them myself.” I tell her, she laughs, soft and sweet beside me.

“You know, it rarely storms in Daybreak Town, but when it does, it lasts weeks, it’s heavy hitting, it doesn’t ever feel like it is going to let up, but then suddenly it does, and what comes to follow is months and months of sunshine and flowers and sunrises.” She tells me, reciting a lesson the Master himself already prepared me for, only with far more optimism. My own subconscious is so uncreative. “But you know, sometimes the stillness of the storm is good. The world settles in around you. I hated being cooped up inside all winter long, but those memories made inside my home were the ones I was too busy to chase the rest of the year.” The woman glitches beside me, like data gone wrong, the sleeves of her gown lose their shoulders, the skirt of her gown becomes shorter, she’s wearing tall white boots, strands of strawberry blonde hair peek out from her hood.

My heart seems to drop into my stomach and simultaneously does a somersault. 

“Do I know you?” I ask. She giggles, the glitch fixes itself, though bits of pink dust cover her body now, but I’m immediately distracted from that by a gust of wind, washing me in flower petals that stick to my soaking skin. I try picking them off, but they don’t come up.

“I suppose not. But I do know you.” She tells me. For a moment, I wonder if this is Ava, if Luxu was implying that she’s been hiding in my head, in my dreams, but there’s another glitch, I see more strawberry blonde hair spill out of the hood, I see a face with a pointed chin and full lips and sea green eyes. And then the face disappears back beneath the hood and I realize instantly that this is not Ava.

“You’re her, you’re Strelitzia.” I blink. “You’re Lauriam’s sister.” I say. The hood comes down, the gown disappears into something shorter with cutout shoulders, tall boots and an accent of black ribbons. She inclines her head to me, a sort of knowing wisdom in her eyes, which are just like mine.

“Your heart is warm and open, Rueki. How else could the Master have connected Luxu to you?” She asks, curling her knees up to her chest. I mean to ask what she’s implying, but the second I open my mouth, she puts a finger to her lips. “We don't have too much time. I’m just here to thank you and trust you stay the course. Our future, depends on the choices you make, and how they alter the past.”

“The past? That doesn’t make shit for sense.” I shake my head, she looks at me, apologetically.

“Your heart is warm, when the time comes, just be sure to let me in.” 

A gust blows petals of spiky orange flowers all over me, dandelion seeds coat my body, rain pelts me, I’m drowning in it and--

And I wake up, eyes blown wide, hands still trying to swipe flower petals off my skin. I look out the window. The first drops of rain hit my skin this morning, but now the storm has fully begun.


	49. Chapter 49

XLVIII.

Vanitas is another someone who doesn’t knock on my door, I discover, when I have just finished dressing and he throws it open. I think his motive, unlike Luxu’s, is more a dig at respecting me than it is a deep desire to see me undressed, but I’m zipping up the side of my skort and he realizes this and turns bright pink.

“I need to do something.” He says gruffly, grinding the tip of his boot into the carpet of my room.

I think it might be moot to argue with him about being able to do things and still giving me a heads up rather than bursting into my room. I think it’s also more give than I have to offer, a raised voice, an opinion brushed aside. So I just finish zipping my skort and grab a hair tie off my dresser. My hair’s grown back decently since last he yanked it out, the patch is passable as bangs now, it doesn’t even stand up anymore but rather bows in submission.

“And you need me for that something?” I inquire as I start twisting meticulously brushed hair onto the top of my head. His reflection narrows its eyes from within my mirror, but not once does he move in further.

“I don’t need you for anything.” Well fuck me for still being shit with tact, I suppose. “Is your hair actually brushed?” He asks. My mouth twists in the mirror.

“You can come in, you know.” I inform him as I finish the bun on the top of my head. Vanitas does not actually come in, which means I’m the one left to cross the distance. I sit on the edge of a bed I’ve spent so little time in of late and splay my hands on the red, orange and yellow comforter. I hate this thing.

“You don’t need to come with me.” He mutters, training his eyes to the floor again when I try to meet them. “It’s just easier, when there’s someone who I don’t have to talk to.”

So he felt it too, the gravitational pull of our battle schemes, like a reflex. Vanitas is a strange extension of me. The blood beneath our fingernails matches, he has no problem kicking me off my own ass when I fall onto it because of very human weaknesses. If he’s asking me for help, he might think he needs the same done for him. Or maybe I’m just the least terrible person for him to reach out to.

“The Master’s got you on another purging mission?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow. Vanitas nods, mouth curling into a pout.

“Whatever, nevermind, you’re gonna say no, you’re too weak to--”

“Dude, come on, just tell me what it is.” I roll my eyes, leaning my weight back into my hands. 

“You’re a bitch this morning.” He mumbles. Probably, to be honest.

“I don’t sleep.” I remind him.

“Join the club.” He scoffs. “Guess it’s nice you didn’t try to bore me with the details of your fight with Xigbar a second time. It’s bad enough I can read your mind.” A second time? So I was projecting that hard to him? And then to who else, I wonder, when I thought I had shut it off? I know Vanitas has always been my troubleshoot, but am I reaching out to my other friends? No, not friends. Am I reaching out to my enemies, my adversaries? And more importantly, who is projecting such strange dreams into my head, and why do I still feel like I can’t get the wet dandelion fluff off of my skin?

“Sorry.” I mumble. “I thought I was quiet.”

“You’re not.” He tells me. “You’ve never been.” His eyes gaze out the window, rain falls heavy in sheets, pounding at the castle roof, stories above us. “You’re like that.” He points a finger out the window of my room, I crack a smile.

“You know, it only rains hard in Daybreak Town for a little while, followed by months of sunlight.” I offer, he rolls his eyes.

“That’s a little nauseating optimistic. You forget, I remember Ventus living here.” He mumbles. My eyes flick to the door frame.

“Anyone behind you?” I ask. 

“Hmm?” He turns, looking out into the hallway. “No.”

“Can I ask you why you killed Lauriam’s sister?” I ask. He turns back to me, venom in his eyes, all but steaming. “Come on, we both know I know, I just want to know why.”

He blinks at me, for a second I think he’s just being a shit, but then I realize there’s concern on his features and he’s shaking his head.

“Shit…” He mutters. He doesn’t need to voice what he’s concerned about, his heart tells me anyway. He doesn’t remember, in his mind, there’s a fog, a haze, events unlined up, memories blurred together in such an extreme way that he doesn’t even know where to begin to look. “What does it even fucking matter, just keep your mouth shut and we won’t have any issues.”

I roll my eyes and sigh, leaning back into my palms pressed against the bed.

“You didn’t take your daily dose of light this morning?” I ask. Vanitas makes a face.

“Gula’s not giving it to me anymore.” He mumbles, my eyes flash and he rolls his. “Stop making stupid faces, it’s just not working, it’s not doing aything for me anyway, so what does it even matter?”

“Are you okay?” I ask, because I remember the nature of his heart, remember it sad and trembling and at a breaking point. 

I know what mine feels like, wanting to return to Luxu, despite everything, just to feel weightless from the lux, once more.

“If I wasn’t, you’d be the last person I say something to.” He rolls his eyes, so I sigh, bringing a leg up beneath me. “I need to go to Twilight Town. You’re probably too weak and pathetic to come with me but--”

But he’s asking me along. 

There’s an awful energy brewing beneath my skin, threatening to reject my insides altogether. My hands spark, my face contorts, I bring my legs up to my chest.

“I knew you couldn’t handle it, just say you can’t, whatever.” 

Maybe he’s right and I can’t handle it but maybe I should be able to? There’s a weird tug of war, the Master talks in riddles and games anyway, but didn’t he tell me that I can’t leave the past behind and it’s okay to mourn it? But when the man I share a bed with, the man who keeps me high as stardust on light and love, the person whose arms I’m supposed to be safest in, is suffering because I can’t let go, what am I benefitting from?

I know what I felt when the impulse to kill the person that mattered most once upon a time washed over me, but is a place really a home when I told Del quite the contrary? Can I cling to Twilight Town when all it served as was an escape from Xemnas’ oppression? There’s no purpose like that for it to fill, me sufficiently out of the cage, off of the leash. So why does this one hurt worse than the others?

I answer my own question almost immediately.

I’m afraid of the levee breaking the moment I see red hair and chiseled features and L--

I can’t think his name still, it sticks to the flypaper my mind has conjured in defense but my body feels the physical effects, the desperation to carve out my own insides. I wish I didn’t fight with Luxu last night, if only so that I could scamper to him and beg for light, because right now I need a hit.

But Vanitas fought Ventus maybe without the light coursing through his veins, has fought him time and time again and while Vanitas’ own level of empathy is certainly less than mine, that is still the person most important to him. If he’s capable, as some prophesized savior shouldn’t I be, too? 

“I’m gonna ask you another thing that you hate.” I warn him. He shoots me a scathing look, like ‘don’t you always’. “How do you handle fighting Ventus? He's literally your other half.” Like Vanitas doesn’t already know this. He snorts but finally does walk into my room, letting the door swing shut behind him.

“It’s just a fight. It doesn’t have to be poetic or meaningful.” He tells me, though I can tell by the teasing he does of his lower lip between his teeth, that he does find meaning and symmetry and poetics, despite swearing he doesn’t. “But when it is, it’s my other half. It’s the light in my dark, and I’m the night on his horizon. What’s the difference between a sunrise and sunset, other than who wins the battle in the end?”

Oh hell, he is deep as shit. I look up at him, his eyes molten and meaningful, I lick my lips.

“I’m scared about going up against him.” I know I don’t need to specify who ‘him’ is, and I’m sure Vanitas isn’t elated about ‘feelings hour’, but finally he does tread over to stand in front of me, one hand in the pocket of his shredded jeans. 

“That’s cuz you’re a fucking pathetic waste of life.” Oh, thanks. But he extends a hand to me and helps me to my feet. When I come up standing, he stands a little taller, despite the way he towers over me. “And your loud fucking heart will probably whine and cry when you need me to double down.” He rolls his eyes. "But at least I’ll hear it.” Perhaps this begrudging sympathy is how all of my relationships start now, I know I like having Elrena in my court, maybe one day it won’t be bad to rest my head against Vanitas just to have it brushed off--maybe he doesn’t expect me to be anything more than human and maybe that’s the best I’ve ever gotten out of golden eyed men.

“I know where the Keyhole is.” I tell him.

“The only reason you’re useful.” He informs me.

“Everyone’s living there.” I chew my lips. His eyes find mine, his heart does too.

“Then maybe you should get them the fuck out.” He’s looking over my shoulder, so I do too, to where my phone rests on my nightstand, untouched after weeks of neglect.

“Okay.” I just say, but I still feel insecure, I’m still pinned by the weight of my own restrictions.

“Go.” He whispers, and though my body doesn’t mean to, it propels itself forward. Like no one else has ever done to me, I’m a marionette on strings, Vanitas’ words move me to my nightstand and when I get here, I’m gasping, eyes flashing at him. “Well you’re a shitty listener.” Is his only defense. 

I don’t have an offense, I just find Amaya’s contact in my phone.

‘Anyone who doesn’t get to Radiant Garden today will be killed by the darkness. Please, get him to safety, even if he still hates me. I love you, I’m sorry.’

\--

Appearing through a burst of light, in Twilight Town, is strange and surreal and otherworldly. I’m remembering summoning Dusks’s and black coats and a face just like the one beside me, framed with golden blond hair.

The same face that stood over me with shaking shoulders and tears in his eyes, only yesterday.

My heart clenches on the beat, Vanitas looks down at me as we ascend up the hill to the train station, me with cold lips and hands and heart, him with a clenched jaw and painstaking frustration.

“Want me to punch you or something?” He mumbles. I raise my eyebrows, like what the fuck is this kid’s problem. “You know, so you have something to cry about?”

I have genuinely zero regrets about making sure Xehanort was finished, the young man beside me genuinely thinks physical pain is the only valid excuse for the tears we both have no idea what to do if I shed.

“I’m good, I’m good.” I lie to both of us as the hollow echo of footsteps chases ahead of us and I think of running into blond boys in the alley with the weight of what you did to their other fresh on your shoulders. I think of chasing black coats in the alley contemplating just letting one friend go to save another. I think of looking at a lover, deciding that if one of us dies we both must, because killing friends isn’t anything anyone signed up for, but I wonder if maybe that’s all I’ve signed up for, this whole time.

The glass inside me cracks again and has been cracking since the news that I came home, broke to my Vanitas, Elrena and the others. But now things start to spill out. Thoughts, feelings, too many memories.

Camaraderie with my best friend’s data friends. Breaking down crying because my best friend can’t recall a trace of who I am. Young, ominous girls setting tremendous weights on my shoulders, knowing full well she’s asking me to choose between love and justice, and how fucked up that now that I’m making the noble, regal choice, my face gets slapped twice as hard as it did when I was selfish.

Why the fuck am I here?

Panic treats my pulse like a punching back, but the answer is a freshly adult man beside me who has never known anything of sympathy or patience, who needs nothing and no one, especially not me, but asked me with feigned indifference, to come along. And that’s an occasion that I rise to without question, with steely hands and set jaw as phantoms tear at the frayed edges of all that I am.

We get to the train station and I don’t even think, I react immediately, grasping Vanitas’ hand. He hates me for it, but I don’t let go, I hold on tight. In the sultry slur of autumn colors, all I see is red. Red hair, red hearts, red hot anger directed straight at me.

Lea.

Lea, Lea, Lea. His name is the bursting of a damn, everything comes rushing out: a proposal on the clocktower, holding my hands in the mansion basement, pleading me to the other side of sanity’s edge. Holding me in a spare bedroom in the mansion while I lick the worst wounds I’ve ever endured.

My mouth is parchment. Skuld and Isa stand beside him, Keyblades out.

“Rueki.” He says my name and I can see it in his eyes, I can feel it reverberating in his heart the way it does in mine. ‘I love you, I’m lost without you, I’m haunted by your soul, come hold me, come love me’. It’s the deepest, most instinctual parts of me crying out to him and he’s got to feel it too, because such pain washes over his face. 

“I warned you.” I say in a voice that doesn’t sound like mine.

“I hoped for you.” He counters, like it’s supposed to cut deeper. Mission accomplished, it shatters the glass house in my mind, until everything is spilling out, pouring over and I freefall. Vanitas clutches his chest and flashes me a look like fuck me and my overflow, and maybe concern for if I’m going to become a hinderance to him.

I think of a future long ago planned, traveling with Lea, chasing highs across the realm or maybe settling into the crisp night and warm colors of twilight town, beach trips with scalding kisses peppered in. I think of a paopu fruit shared on the beach and how even if it weren’t for these souls, so attached, Lea and I would have, a million times over, done everything in our power to bind ourselves together. Now I wonder which one of us wants to break free more. 

But then, in my mind, I hear Lea calling me a monster, I hear it reverberating like some sort of haunted echo from the back of my head. I call Backbiter into my hands.

“You know how this goes, you can all run along or you can face us.” Vanitas’ Keyblade appears in his hands, his teeth are bared, the boy looks downright feral but my arms just shake. I have to do this, it’s just a means to an end, it’s just a temporary bit of suffering, it’s just a task I need to get through, it’s just an icky job--

My skin has goes downright ghostly, I grip my Keyblade a little tighter and clench my jaw.  
My feelings don’t matter, he hoped for me, he doesn't anymore, I’m the only one living in our history, the only one reeling with the ghosts of our past. At least, that’s how it feels when Lea takes a fighting stance.

Vanitas and I exchange glances and oh how I’m thankful I feel his heart. Mine shouts and we dive forward. He leaps between Skuld and Lea, unleashing a flurry of attacks that overwhelm and stagger both of them and I--

I focus my attention on a safer and more familiar target.

I move first because I know that’s the only way I get ahead, we’ve done this dance a thousand times and Isa and I know the choreographed moves by heart. He hits me so hard I lose cognitive thought as I hit the ground. Viciously, I loop a leg around his and knock him down, right onto me. I zap him, both hands on his shoulders, body pressed to his.

“I just wanted him to get out.” I choke, the words fall from my anxious lips as Lea and Skuld are caught up in the rubble that is Vanitas. Isa flips me off of him, shaking from the shock and grabs a fistful of my hair. He bashes my head so hard into the ground I think I actually do see stars. 

“I know.” Isa’s voice cuts through the haze. I pull him down by his hair, hands on both sides to try to press his face into the cobblestone, but he’s stronger than me and lurches free, only to land a blow just a little too far from my head to mean a thing. “I did too, they’re insufferably hellbent on justice.” He pauses a moment to cast his girlfriend and my husband a glance and my heart burns in my chest. Is this--

“Are you pulling your punches, Isa?” The incantation of his name has his eyes on mine, the smile on his lips is a little too serene. 

“Hardly, there’s a reason the two more experienced with their Keyblades are assessing the real threat.” But he grins down at me and my heart catches in the cage of my throat, binding the words I want to say, the thanks, the forgiveness already uttered, the acceptance I’m staring plainly in the face as I grip my hatred one last time and let it go. “I just get it, is all. If you had another life to look forward to, I’d happily take this one from you so my best friend could grieve in peace.”

“Maybe mine could too.” I offer him a pathetic look. 

“No, she’d become a homicidal lunatic.” Isa pants, I snort.

“And you know so well about that.” I push myself up to my feet, recall Backbiter from where it somehow fell to the ground, and we go again.

Isa’s Keyblade hits mine, it rattles my fucking teeth and has my skull pulsating. But this is the first person I don’t pull punches with and there’s something about the very act of hitting him with all that I have, that feels like breaking a seal, that feels like first breath.

My eyes find cyan ones with a scar placed between them and I don’t know if he realizes this, because surely I didn’t until now, but I will always find motivation inside of Isa. To one up him, to banish him from Lea’s life, to beat my own forgiveness into him, to pound him with my own jealousy and now, to pray I end up like him. To get to the home I so desperately want to be in, at the end of this, even though it seems just shy of impossible

I’m not gonna be forgiven, but I guess he didn’t expect to be either and I guess pretending that’s not all I want has been chains on my wrists.

Weight bears down on me, but I push back and this time I mean it, the muscles in my back straining, screaming in protest, I hear my wrists and the joints in my hands pop, begging for relief and when finally I can take no more, I sneak a leg out and kick Isa on the side of the knee so hard it breaks.

My back smacks to the ground, he roars but he recovers like I do, quickly chugging a Potion on the ground.

Vanitas is having no trouble parrying Skuld and Lea, faster than both of them put together, capable of hitting twice as hard. I chew my lips. I don’t need to do this, I don’t want to do this. It’s just smart battle strategy if I do.

The Master would be so proud.

“Blizzaga! Lea hits the ground, clutching his chest, he screams so loud that my eyes start to swim in their sockets. Panic rushes over me, I’m in Betwixt and Between again, I’m over his body in the Keyblade Graveyard and I can’t get out and someone is screaming and I--

Isa hoists me up to my feet, just to knock me back down again, aiming his blade straight at my throat. Skuld is helping put Lea back together and there’s genuinely a moment where I wonder if I actually want Isa to put me out of my misery. Our eyes are glued to each other, this is so familiar.

“I’ll get him to safety.” Is what he says as he slams his Keyblade into my shoulder, piercing straight through.

I lurch, the scream that rips through me is violent and crippling, but my adrenaline does more than just kick in. His blade still hanging from me, I fight Isa, not playful, not holding back. I tear the blade from my shoulder, throw it to the ground and lunge at him, wrapping my arms around his legs.

“Thundaga!” Or maybe I am pulling punches, because I’m bleeding out and I know stronger spells than that, but also I do need to maintain stamina, I have no business exerting fourth tier spells when my vision starts to get woozy and I--

I’m limp on the ground, Isa is too, but Skuld’s voice screams a cure spell, and I’m still clutching my shoulder with one hand, trying to find a Potion in my pouch with a weak, tingly hand. Skuld dives in my way, Keyblade slung back, and she aims for me, just as I manage to stand, like she’s swinging a baseball bat. I can’t jump, I can’t even stumble out of the way, I just take the blow to the stomach and the way it knocks the wind out of me as I crash to the ground. But victory is earned when my hands close around a Hi-Potion. I chug it so fast, I choke, but when Skuld comes at me again, I lock my legs around her ankle, sending her to the ground just so I can climb on her and put my elbow to her nose.

She screams, Isa swats me off of her with his Keyblade to my lower back. I barely leap away before it has time to cut straight through me. My eyes find Vanitas, my heart cries at him, his head cranes back as he knocks Lea back to the ground. Vanitas nods and takes off in a sprint, Keyblade aimed toward the sky. I hold mine out, flat with both hands, he sails forward with his Keyblade raised. He opens the Keyhole in the sky and jumps off the tip of my blade. 

“Aeroga!” I shout, he sails on the wind, straight into the Keyhole. Suld shrieks, high and defiant she rides the wind after him. Isa’s eyes fly huge and he takes off after her, barely making it in after Vanitas before the Keyhole snaps shut. 

My heart stills. For whatever else, Vanitas is a good partner. There’s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that he will succeed in plunging the world to darkness, despite the two chasing him. Only one request shouts through my heart, straight into his, loud enough to cross realms.

‘Just don’t hurt them’.

It doesn’t have to be like that.

Unfortunately, the same doesn’t hold true for me. I meet green eyes and feel as though my insides are pouring out. Lea pushes himself up off the ground.

“I don’t want to fight you.” I whisper, for me, more than for him. I don’t even think he hears it.

“How could you?” He shouts. “You let yourself become this, after everything, Rueki? Did nothing fucking get through? I called you a monster to hold you back from becoming one!”

“Funny, I think that was the push off the ledge.” I grit my teeth, knuckles going white around Backbiter’s hilt. “You promised you’d be my red light, that you’d travel the fastest to me, but you couldn’t even get that right! Red light travels the furthest! I keep watching you disappear again and again and again!”

He whirls his blade straight at me, but I catch the thing in my hands and grip it like a vice, squeeze it like I want to squeeze him, hold it so tight he can’t take it away. Even though he took back his love, even though he took back his promises.

I drop Backbiter to the ground and turn Flame Liberator into Eternal Flame. I whirl the chakrams around my hands, like I’ve seen him do a thousand times, curling my shoulders back.

I’m in Oblivion again and I can’t get away. I can’t be anything but that weak little woman he only pitied enough to keep alive. He’s looking at me like he’s broken and like he’s doing all he can and why am I so stupid for never being able to see it?

Why can’t I ever see and acknowledge anything he tries to do for me, I’m sure he wonders. I think maybe I wonder it too. He tries calling Eternal Flame back to him, but I jerk them back.

I’m not going to cry. I grind the heel of my shoe into the pavement and take a long, sharp breath.

“So this is what we’re gonna do then… You say you don’t want to fight, but thats the only option you ever give us.” When he fails once more to recall Eternal Flame, he seizes up Backbiter and turns it into La Luxure. I bite my lips, my hands shake, I feel my insides vibrating hard enough to shatter my frame.

“If you were fucking smart, you’d go to Radiant Garden.” I tell him.

“Why would I ever do that, when you strike down everyone else who crosses your path! Are you really gonna strike me down, Rueki? For saving our home?” He roars and it takes everything to force myself to stay upright, to not collapse and hit the ground. “You keep saying this is all for me, what if this kills me, Rueki, what if I let the darkness take me, what then?”

I know the answer to that question right away, but I keep my mouth shut. 

“What have you done with my wife?” He chokes. “I just want to hold her again.”

Hair clings to my forehead in sweaty tendrils. Sweat drips down my mangled face onto my distorted body. Maybe there’s nothing left of me that is the woman he married, maybe he isn’t wrong. The thought is a cancer that pushes my heart and mind between a rock and a hard place, grinding until all that’s left of me are shreds. I shriek, crank the chakrams back and dive at him.

What’s magnificent is fighting with them is almost as easy as fighting with my own Keyblade. I paint the air with flames, the blades lick his skin, he’s got no idea how to dodge a weapon he’s never had to run from before, and they come right back to my hands, spinning shields when he leaps in and slashes with La Luxure. I twist, aiming for his middle, and realize I have left too little distance. Not for him though. He punches straight toward my shoulder. The blades of La Luxure bite my shoulder just hard enough to force me to fall back, jumping away on one foot, clutching myself. 

The wet, hissing breath I take doesn’t sound like my own, I barely even register it as my eyes fly around the train station. I’m still trying to catch my breath, but Lea dives straight in, without hesitation, chasing one blow after the other, a Knuckle to my shoulder, one to my hip, one to my leg, then back up again. Still, he holds himself back so tangibly, it’s easy to trap one fist in the gap of Eternal Flame, draw a leg up and kick him in the stomach.

Lea grunts, groping for his middle as he struggles for breath. Nasty visions flood my mind’s eye. A little boy charging in to save a little girl, the Shark Noise coming for Axel, Axel fading in Betwixt and Between, Terra striking Lea down in the Keyblade Graveyard. My eyes feel like they’re shaking in their sockets, my mind is being rattled. my chest lurches. Lea springs back up, and I jump, retreating with flailing limbs.

“Why are you doing this?” He shouts at me.

“I can’t!” I just scream, like he’s supposed to understand, like he gets it. I can’t hurt him, I can’t watch him die, definitely not by my hand I--

I’m plagued with the obsession, with the compulsion to save him, the need to preserve him, no matter what the cost. Maybe his wife is dead, but if he lives, if he makes it, that’s everything.

“Can’t you just go? Can’t you just trust me, can’t you ever trust me?” I plead, tears burning straight down my face. He lashes at me with La Luxure once more. With a grunt, I point my finger and aim a thunderder spell that does no more than shake him. “What did I do? What did I ever do wrong? I followed you through fucking hell, Lea! I am the only one of us who is doing a fucking thing to keep you alive!”

“You are shattering our lives!” He shouts.

“And you’re chasing me into a hole! I’m not getting hurt, but you keep trying to, every chance you get, you keep trying to!” I wail, slashing at him again, blind with fury. The chakrams grate his forearm as he tries to guard. Both of our eyes go wide. “I...Lea…”

“This is what happens.” He wipes the blood off onto his black jeans, eyes locking with mine. “Why can’t you see that when we don’t stand together, we both fall?”

“Why can’t you see that when we do, you fall and I’m left on my own, with the consequences. I can’t do this, I can’t watch you keep getting hurt, why don’t you understand?” I demand. 

“Don’t you ever think about us sitting on the beach, dreaming about the future?” He asks.

“I do, all the time.” I answer. “But that’s the thing, Lea, I don’t need the same. I’ve got you, I’ll keep us safe. You made me trust you through Oblivion when you knew best how to keep us alive. Now I know best, you need to trust me. You need to believe that I know what I’m doing.”

He goes so soft, I think I’ve won him over, I think now all it’ll take is my arms around his waist and my face pressed to his chest to convince him but--

But he pinches his eyes shut and shakes his head.

“Believe it or not, sweetheart, this is the only time I’ve ever thought you don’t.”

My heart shatters, piercing my mind like glass clattering to the ground. To cover it, I scream, and slash at him. An endless parry, again and again and again until he can’t hold off my barrage anymore.

“Rueki, stop!” He begs, but I shriek louder, until my throat feels like sandpaper. l I lose my voice, until what comes out is mangled, strangled, dead. 

The cries of a wraith don’t stop as I pummel him with his own weapon and he chases me back with mine, and we’re destroying each other, skin and fabric and hair. I can’t stop crying, he won’t stop begging me.

“I’m never going to stop trying to bring you home!” He insists. “I’m never going to give up on you, I’m never going to quit hoping that you’ll change your mind! I don’t care if it’s on the day this all ends, I will drag you back kicking and screaming because I am never going to stop loving you, Rueks!”

But he has! I want to shriek! And if he hasn’t, he’s done enough, he’s hurt me enough, he’s already won, he’s already proven he cares less, we both already know that I’ll break my bones and my head and my heart and my body for him, he’s already gotten everything he’s ever wanted.

I don’t know if my arms give out, I don’t know if this is a defense mechanism, I don’t know if everything inside of me is just quitting because the thought of wounding my soulmate is something that will actually break me clean in two, but I’m mid swing and the Chakrams hit the ground. I hit my knees. Lea folds, massive body broken, he takes a knee, plants both hands on the ground and gasps.

“Come on, Rueki!” He whines. “Just--just come the fuck home.” 

He pushes himself up and stumbles toward me.

I fall to my back, broken on the ground, watching him as he drags his body, like a corpse, toward me. 

He places both hands beside my head, nudges my nose with his, and presses scorching lips to my mouth. Tears streak down my face, but I twist my arms around him and it’s like breathing life into each other again. It’s cathartic and invigorating and awakening, I’m not just lying there, drifting away in the touch of someone I know I can’t work things out with in the first place. It’s me and Lea, continuously this is where my life makes sense. He pulls me up, I’m on my knees, straddling his lap, and his hands are so chaste but it means so much, the way he squeezes my waist hard enough to bruise. I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to move, I don’t want the world to exist outside of just him and I. I can’t stop crying, I think he’s started too.

“I can’t do this, I can’t do this.” I don’t realize my mouth is moving against his until my voice crackles in the air like thunder, and I’m really not sure what it is I can’t do. Can’t kiss him, can’t keep trying at a love that turns us both to ash, can’t block out the extremities of how much I love him, can’t hold his name back like a dam does a river, can’t fight the memories, can’t destroy my home, can’t let a thing like home stand in the way of my ultimate goals? Everything feels too massive an effort. Lea drags my head down to his shoulder and lets me nestle in the crook of his neck. He smooths my hair.

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” He assures me, squeezing me still too tight with one hand.

“I’m so sorry.” About all I’ve done, about all I’m going to keep doing, in equal parts I ask penance for my sins and forgiveness for what I know I’m going to do.

“I know.” And I don’t know if this means he forgives me or if it’s flat out not enough, but I guess I can’t expect him to know. I feel a tugging in my heart, too hard, too fast, too soon. I push myself off of Lea, wiping my eyes with the back of my hands.

The Keyhole spits Skuld and Isa straight out of the sky but not Vaitas, and I’m not even momentarily worried because I can still feel him, prominent and palpitating beneath the surface of my own chest. 

I almost look the other way, but Skuld lurches on the ground, screaming, clutching her abdomen. Lea’s head snaps in her direction, mine does too and he takes off toward his friend, but I take off to someone who needs me, on my knees, looking over her.

“Get her away!” Skuld snaps, demanding of Lea, but Isa looks straight at me.

“He hit her with some sort of darkness, I don’t know what’s happening, she hit the ground and--” Isa’s breath is catching in his throat. I fish around the pocket of my pouch, mouth forming a tight line. 

“Do you have anything to cure her?” I ask.

“Yes, but I tried and she still...she keeps…” There’s genuine fear in Isa’s voice, Lea looks at me, baffled. 

“If you’re trying to sabotage anyone, you chose a damn poor time, Rueks!” Lea snaps.

“I told you guys to get to safety, I warned you, I’m doing this for you, you raging dick, that’s never changed.” I jut a vial into Isa’s hand, as I stand. “Give that to her and then cure her, but get the fuck out of here first, we don’t have long.”

On cue, Vanitas comes raining down from the Keyhole and takes off running, I sprint after him and follow him into the portal of light he creates. 

The cruelest thing I’ve ever done is watch the man I love stare after me with ache in his eyes while the world we made home in falls to darkness.


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I've honestly been avoiding this announcement like the plague. I really want to keep up production of this fic at the levels I was at on lock down, but for better or for worse, my personal life is demanding a lot of attention.  
So I'm gonna have to cut back down to one chapter a week. And we won't be getting an update on Tempest for a couple weeks while I play catch up. I'll let you guys know in here when I post on there. Tragically, that's what being an adult is all about.   
So I'll see you guys every Wednesday with weekly updates and hopefully life levels out a little more so I can resume twice a week posting before this fic is done!  
Love you guys and if you're still reading this, you're the realest

XLIX.

“You wanna go spar?” We haven’t even taken steps away from where we landed in Daybreak Town. We’re under an awning, just outside the castle in some sort of training area, safe from the storm but my pulse still electrocutes me, still begs for punishment. 

“We just had an actual fight you should’ve used your energy on.” Vanitas seethes, rolling his eyes. And I know this and he knows this, and my energy is damn near gone, I’m running completely on fumes at this point but still--

I blink and I feel piping hot lips against mine. My heart beats and I imagine hads gripping my waist like a vice. I breathe, and four words follow on the wind ‘I hoped for you’. I don’t have the stamina to stand up properly, but it takes a lot more than this type of pain to shut my mind up.

“I’ll make it worth your while.” I offer.

“I’m not interested in that.” He sneers, like whore jokes are actually still funny.

“No, I want you to beat the shit out of me.” I insist, watching his eyes go wide. He looks at me with a weary expression as his head tilts to the side. He’s trying to decipher what I’m playing at here, but the fact of the matter is, I’m not playing anything. “Just like yesterday, I want you to hit me as hard as you can.” 

“You have fucking issues.” He shakes his head.

“You’re stronger than me, what does it matter?” A light sparks in his eyes at my words. He liked that, he liked that a lot and he has no idea how to process it and neither do I. He brings a fist up, my heart flares. He throws a punch, I dodge. He rolls his eyes, snorts a little and summons his blade. I almost sigh as I call Backbiter to my hand and the two of us leap in on each other, metal echoing through the grounds. I grunt as I put my weight into the attack and promptly yelp as his sheer force throws me straight onto my back, into the grass.

He comes sailing at me, blade drawn up and over his head, and were it not for quick reflexes, he might actually have killed me. I call Backbiter back into my hands, from where it has fallen to the ground. The impact of his sword to mine pounds my temples. The reverberation of my bones inside of me shouldn’t be so delightful. He tosses his sword back, grabs my arms and shoves them over my head with the type of force that yanks my very body and prompts me to drop my Keyblade into the dirt. He smashes his head against mine so hard that I hear both of our teeth clicking. The cracking noise in my skull shouldn’t be so satisfying. On my howl, he seizes me by the front of my shirt, flips me over and pummels my head into the grass below us. The mouthful of earth I spit out, along with my own blood, shouldn’t make me feel so pleasant.

But it does. It makes me feel nothing and everything and I-- 

I am alive only for how feral we have become. 

It’s not long before our Keyblades are forgotten about. Vanitas has a mean right hook, but I can roundhouse kick like a son of a bitch. He puts a fist to my gut. I double over, grappling at his shoulder as breath is torn from my lungs. He kicks my legs out from underneath me, I crash to the ground and the boy does not hold back. He steps on my arm until I see only white. A fist pounds my cheek. A wet packing noise radiates, sending a delighted shudder through him. His hand wraps purposefully around my neck, fingers curling with care before they press into my throat. He yanks me up, my heart steps away from my body. He brings our faces dangerously close together, eyes scanning over me, over the blood dripping down my lips. He cranks his arm back and smashes a fist into my eye. My brain’s rattling in my skull as my head hits the ground, but I laugh, this soft, breathless sound.

“Xigbar’s gonna get so pissed at what I did to your face.” Vanitas breathes.

“It’s no worse than you knocking my fucking teeth out of my face.” I say, but I wink at him, so he knows I’m no worse for the wear.

“Great. Cool.” Vanitas grumbles, eyes darting away from me, climbing off of me as though being close to me for that much longer will make him ill. 

“How bad are you trying to get beaten up?” Emyd’s voice sounds off and both Vanitas and I look up, eyes widen, like we’ve been caught in something. He and Elrena are standing at the edge of the arena, her with his arms across her chest, him looking about as dopey and unassuming as normal.

“She asked for it.” Vanitas curls in tight on himself, face coloring severely.

“Knew it.” Elrena hums, swinging her arms as she traipses over to us and sinks down beside me. Emyd follows her suit, crossing his legs. “Your masochist tendencies would be precious if they weren’t so sad.” I think that’s supposed to be a compliment, but I do still feel too ragged to function. “What triggered it this time?”

Oh hell. Tears prickle at my vision again, I quickly wipe them away, but Elrena raises both eyebrows and Emyd and Vanitas are both clearly too uncomfortable to function. 

“Should I uh...call Ludor?” Emyd asks. How sad when Ludor has been forced to take the mantle as my most sympathetic friend. I think it says something for his growth but maybe it just means I’ve regressed. 

“No, no.” I shake my head. Elrena sets a hand on my shoulder.

“We broke Twilight Town.” Vanitas says. “She fought...her...whatever, her soulmate.”

“And you let her?” Elrena rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh. 

“I’m not her fucking babysitter. It’s just a fucking fight, I told her she didn’t need to come, I could’ve handled it on my own!” Vanitas snaps. 

“Well clearly the fuck not if you had to drag her around, are you damn stupid?” She hisses.

“Stop, come on.” I shake my head. “It was fine, I’m fine, he’s fine. He brought me along because we can read each other’s mind, it’s easier to fight with someone like that.” I insist. “Besides...I knew I wasn’t going to change anything, I know nothing’s going to get better, so isn’t it better that I’m the one destroying everything?” But it doesn’t feel any more rewarding, voicing the way I think I’m supposed to feel, out loud. Just like it didn’t feel any better to accept what I truly know I feel.

“That’s kind of silly.” Emyd’s mouth curls up, I blink back the stupid tears I’m so sick of crying and Elrena snorts.

“You would think that, you just don’t get it.” She snarls.

“Maybe not.” He agrees evenly. “But I don’t know why you’d want to do something that makes you feel bad, just so no one can do it to you first.”

“Such an ignorant moron.” Elrena rolls her eyes. 

“There’s not a need to berate him for not stooping to your level.” Lauriam’s voice sounds off as he and Ludor approach, Lauriam with hands in his pockets. 

Ludor looks at me, heaves a sigh and comes to my side to sit down.

“Why is it that you’re always bleeding?” He asks me, I shrug. 

“She asked for it, she seriously asked for it!” Vanitas snaps, face coloring deeper. I get the sense he’s going to leave, so I tug at the sleeve of his shirt, which he visibly loathes, but it does keep him anchored.

“I did ask for it.” I agree.

“Why?” Emyd blinks.

“Because the only time I feel alive is when Vanitas has his hands on me.” I bat my lashes. At this, Vanitas actually does stand up to leave, but I tug the leg of his jeans. “Dude, come on, stay, you know I only make you uncomfortable to deflect from how much I hate myself.”

He kicks my arm and I make a face.

“Broken?” He asks.

“My wrist is, yeah.” I nod. “It’s fine, I’ll just...I’ll deal with that later.”

“You’ll deal with a broken bone later…” Emyd trails off then chuckles under his breath. “Dude, you’re hardcore.”

At long last a smile that doesn’t seem to consume any and all effort tugs up the corners of my lips. My heart’s a little warmer, and maybe only because it’s about to burst. My phone takes on the weight of bricks in the pocket of my pouch, but I’m certainly not lonely.

“Omigod, the standard that you hold yourself to is embarrassing.” Elrena rolls her eyes at him.

“Sure is.” Emyd agrees smugly. “I have no interest in being able to ‘take a hit’.” This big, stupid, goofy smile spreads across his face, she gives pause and draws her leg up to her chest, face a muriad of conflict and loathing, so Lauriam clears his throat and sits down beside her.

“It is a shame that you’d given up your memory, Emyd. I recall you searching gallantly for my sister, along with Elrena when all of us were transported to the Data Daybreak Town. You could use a pinch of gallantry now.” He teases, Elrena’s eyes flash wide with horror, but Emyd doesn’t have quite the same concern, he just hums softly.

“I did? Really?” He blinks. Elrena just pouts and mutters a soft ‘mmhmm’.

“Truly, no memory? Not even hints of one?” Ludor asks and Emyd shakes his head. “Even Rueki had edges that were lifting in her mind, when her memories were a mystery to her.”

“All in dreams. I didn’t realize it though, Lea was the one who put the pieces together for me, I just thought they were dreams.” I explain, Emyd hums again, leaning back in his hands to speculate, Ludor’s eyes find me, searching, unsure.

“Well, all I dream about are nymphs. Your sister wasn’t by chance a mermaid, was she?” Emyd asks and Lauriam heaves a mighty sigh that looks like all his energy is being spent on not throttling the water elemental in front of him. I laugh, Vanitas actually does too, even Elrena’s holding back a smile. “Alright, alright, I just thought I’d ask.”

“By chance, are we having a therapy session on the lawn because you’re finally comfortable voicing your husband’s name?” Ludor asks. “And you uh...sought out violence to compensate for your own internal war?”

“You read me like...scary well. You know, for how much Luxu talks about the years he spent watching over me, I think you guys might know me a little better.” I confess.

“Because you won’t shut up in my head.” Vanitas rolls his eyes. 

“Valid.” I agree. “Um, I actually went with Vanitas to destroy Twilight Town. And Lea and I fought. He’s still so fucking strong.” 

Ludor sighs softly but sets a hand on my shoulder. I’m worlds beyond thankful for the leaps and bounds we’ve taught each other in becoming friends.

“You are genuinely a masochist, love.” Ludor informs me.

“Oh, trust me, I already told her.” Elrena shakes her head. “I think she’s distinctly aware.”

“I’m a masochist and I have a fucked up sense of suffering through the right thing so that I can get to the fun stuff and I think I’ve been treating my life as a means to an end these past few years, but I’m fucking twenty two and I actually think I don’t want to die.” I spit out, and at first, there’s discomfort about how the feelings aren’t epilogued with humor to add to this self depreciation, but then, Lauriam sinks down onto his back in the grass, lacing his fingers behind his head.

“I fumbled for a very long time toward becoming something someone would be proud of. Now, I don’t know what Sterlitzia would have been proud of and more than ever, I’m horrified the Master is going to bring her back and she’s going to take one look at me and decide that the brother she knew never would’ve staged coups or sold himself to darkness for a profit.” Lauriam admits, blue eyes searching the group, through heavy lashes, almost as though this is a performance and he’s hoping for applause. I guess I can’t shame him if that’s the only way he can get through this because really, my own techniques for coping aren’t much better. Exchanging vices like currency, settling only on bedding a man that’s just--

A means to an end. Realization hits me, I understand very well that my future with Luxu is tainted at best and set for failure almost certainly. I wonder if I’ll shed a tear when it’s burnt out for good, though I think probably not. 

“I uh… I don’t really have any memories to…” Emyd begins, but Elrena groans loudly, cutting him off.

“You’re a coward. And the guy you used to be was a lazy bastard, but at least he’d do the right thing when he was called to it. Now it’s like fucking pulling teeth to get you to do anything other than play your damn sitar and sit on your ass, I mean what kind of person is too useless to even care about what made him who he is?” Elrena harps, face growing hot. My chest starts to lace itself up, I wonder if I shoulder intercede, but she stops herself, hurt eyes falling onto the grass. She picks up a chunk from the dirt and sprinkles it back onto the ground. Around us, the storm carries on, but we’re still so safe beneath the awning.

Out of solidarity, I tear up a little grass and sprinkle it onto hers. 

“Why does any of it matter?” Emyd asks, shrugging, though a little uncomfortable.

“Don’t you feel like you left something behind?” She asks. He just blinks at her.

“Someone would tell me if I did, right?” He asks, she doesn’t answer, just plucks out blades of grass individually. “When we looked for Sterlitiza together, were you this mean to me then?” 

I’m ready for her to tear his head off with nothing but her teeth, instead Elrena snorts softly.

“No, I wasn’t a bitch yet.” She says, wistfully. 

“You were remarkably different back then.” Lauriam recalls. “Losing your memories when we sprung forward was most difficult for you.”

“I didn’t lose my memories.” She says, plainly.

“You didn’t?” Ludor gasps.

“No. I lost something worse.” She admits. “And I don’t want anyone to ask me stupid questions about it, but I had a soulmate too. And he died right when we emerged into the future.” I watch realization dawn in Ludor’s eyes as to who might have been the first to go, when transferring worldlines, and his shock is clear as day, but still, he forces his face into the closest thing to neutrality. A poker face indeed. “And Lauriam was unconscious and those fucking Heartless ate his damn heart right in front of me and I ran for as long as I could and fought as hard as I could, but I was tired and young and...and it turns out fucking Xigbar was gunning to recruit anyway, so what chance did I have when one of the Foretellers wanted my heart for some old bastard’s collection?” Elrena cards her hands through her hair, eyes narrowed as she looks at me. “And it sucks that you’re fucking him.” 

“I concur. Vehemently.” Ludor says and when my eyes widen, he meets me with a sly smile. “What was it you called me, years ago? That I’m your judgy friend? Where would I be without passing judgement.”

“I literally cannot believe you told him that, that was rude, what did that accomplish?” I huff, looking at Emyd, who just shrugs, not an ounce of shame clinging to him.

“Hey, I let it slip that you were fucking Axel, I was trying to find something else to deflect.” Emyd insists, I giggle, smile stretching wider, almost painfully across my lips.

“Regardless, I think that I did fail you, rather severely as a friend back then.” Ludor tells me, I shake my head.

“We are so far past that.” I insist. “I puked on Luxu’s shoes and you carried my ass to bed and made me brush my teeth.”

“Ew.” Vanitas finally speaks up, silent in the face of such blatant emotions. 

“But my failure to be at your side was catastrophic for you.” Ludor shakes his head. “Had Emyd not found you in the throne room…”

“What happened in the throne room?” Elrena asks.

“Back in the World That Never Was, I can’t believe you haven’t talked about it.” Emyd says.

“Well that’s why I’m asking now, dipshit.” Elrena mutters. 

“Saix mutilated her. Like completely destroyed her.” Emyd says.

“Like I said, broken bones aren’t a big deal.” I mumble, mouth twisting. But as Emyd recants my brutalization at the hands of my husband’s best friend, I realize I have become scary enough where I no longer fear Isa. I don’t think I really fear a thing.

“Wait, and you let him live with you?” Elrena blinks at me, I just shake my head.

“Okay, that’s not that big of a deal now. I got to kill him, we spent like a year tormenting each other.” I offer. “It was a rough start, but I think we’re friends now, we’ve exchanged enough homicides. And he told me he’d get Lea to safety.”

“A fucked up sense of justice, indeed.” Ludor shakes his head, but places his palms in the grass. “You know, when we first met, I don’t believe you were much like Sterlitzia beyond the obvious looks. But regardless of if you’ve acknowledged these things in yourself, you’ve grown into someone very compassionate, very forgiving.”

“And that is incredibly like Strelitzia.” Lauriam agrees. I don’t tell him I’ve been dreaming of her. “And I believe, from the depths of my heart, she would be distraught if she knew I blamed you for her death far longer than I should have. Forgive me, for not realizing she was searching for you, for far different reasons.” He tells Ludor.

“And forgive me for still not having an answer to those reasons, if there were anything I could have done in my power, to stop her searching, I would have.” Ludor insists.

Lauriam laughs, something haughty, like he knows something none of us do, but at least he deigns to tell us.

“She was rather infatuated with you. She knew the war was beginning, she was chasing you down to ensure you made it to the data world with her.” Lauriam replies, and Ludor’s face colors, his eyes widen and I think this might be what it looks like to find out your unrequited childhood love wasn’t as one sided as expected. I’m still stuck on what he said and about how maybe I am more forgiving than I used to be, but maybe that’s only because I have no moral high ground to stand on anymore. “Still, I’m certainly thankful you’re not responsible for her death. That is still not something I’d show mercy to anyone for.” Lauriam shows teeth and Vanitas’ face doesn’t budge out of the stoniness he usually dons, but he does curl over on himself, eyes narrowed.

“Is this what being an adult means in this realm? We sit around crying about our pasts like a bunch of babies?” He mutters, and Elrena opens her mouth, maybe to lash out at him, but I realize Vanitas is genuinely asking and this might be the only way he knows how to voice curiosity. Surely it wasn’t nurtured for him ever before. So I offer him a half smile.

“I mean, it seems like it’s either this or abusing children and making them fight wars for you.” I explain. “I think enough children have suffered.”

He’s quiet for a long moment before he nods.

“Yeah, me too.”

\--

I walk into Luxu’s room, rubbing my eyes pretending that mascara hasn’t stained my cheeks, pretending that my wrist is definitely not broken, pretending that blood isn’t dripping down my calf, pretending that we didn’t leave on a note that taught me everything about cost, pretending that I haven’t already given up on a future beside him.

“Why do you always show up looking like death?” Luxu sighs, hoisting himself out of bed to come to my side. His hands take up my face and I let him examine me like I don’t already know how to put myself together.

“Cuz Vanitas and I sparred. Do you think you can set the bones in my wrist?” I ask.

“That what I am now, your resident doctor?” He asks.

“I mean how am I supposed to stroke your dick when my dominant hand isn’t working?” I ask. He raises an eyebrow, maybe at my dry lack of enthusiasm, maybe at the words themselves. “Twilight Town is gone. Vanitas and I took care of it today.”

His golden eyes flashes, we sit down on the bed and tenderly, Luxu unwraps my wrist. The abrupt lack of pressure feels like it’s going to pull me apart and I come to the realization that I’m only satisfied when I’m being crushed. 

“Now that, I definitely didn’t think you had the guts for.” He tells me, letting my hand fall into both of his outstretched ones so he can assess the damage. 

“Well someone suggested I let go of the past.” Nevermind I don’t think it was effective. Luxu manipulates my bones and I bite down on my lip hard enough to draw blood as he sets everything in place. I feel the shift, use my free hand to grab a Hi-Potion from my pouch and chug the thing. The hole in my leg closes up, the bones repair themselves, but I still feel like the human equivalent to an open wound. 

“So you blew your home to smithereens.” He observes. I shrug. 

“I told you before that there wasn’t anything for me to leave behind there. Now I don’t have any excuse to look back. You’re right, I wanted to think that the past made me who I am, but I made me who I am, that’s my choice, how I want to be and I hate feeling weak.” I say. Luxu brushes a leather gloved thumb across my lips, it’s like pins and needles on my skin after the scalding kiss Lea placed on me. I wonder if the man I’m in bed with can knows that my lips touched another’s. That my heart is so far removed from his.

“Then why were you crying, kiddo?” He asks, once again, in this realm I’m aware that these super humans have correct answers they’re seeking out, and I get to decide if I’m going to be the pathetic thing that answers with emotion or the empowered creature that answers with logic.

“Because my wrist was broken, that smarts a little.” I answer and Luxu chuckles. I taste success but it’s hardly as sweet as I expected. He leans forward and presses his mouth to mine, hard and harsh and demanding and it’s all I can do to keep giving more and more. He puts me down into the bed, on my back, his body flush with mine, our legs dangling precariously over the edge.

“You want a little light?” He asks. Desperately, I want to answer.

“Please.” I nod.

“Tell me what I wanna hear.” He whispers, mouth at the crook of my neck.

“I love you.” It’s just three words, it’s just a lie that gets me my way, and what does it matter if I love him or not, everything’s got a cost, everything in this fucking realm. For Luxu, it’s access to lies and time wasted in bed, for Del it was behaving a certain way, being a certain type of lawful and sweet but most importantly exciting. I tasted the closest thing I could ever to unconditional love with Lea, and even that I had to give up to chase goals, so what does it even matter when there’s light burning into my brain, when there are lips against my skin?

It’s only until the end of the war, and then the chains are really off.

\--

The price I pay for time spent in Luxu’s arms is a night of screaming the right things, touching the right places. I earn constant shots of light that leave me high and delirious and so depleted.

I climb out of bed while he sleeps soundly, the stars and moon are voyeurs through our windows. I wonder what secrets they’ll whisper to the sun come morning. I wonder what lies the sun will tell the sky and the land and the sea as it beams down and I wonder where it leaves me. 

Rain still pounds down, harder and heavier than ever, but I like the heartbeat of raindrops on our windowpane. 

With unsure hands, I take my phone out of the pocket of my pouch and disappear into the bathroom, only turning the device on once the door is shut behind me.

There are unread texts, a lot of them vulgar insults, a lot of them accusations, confirmation for days that I never get to be the same after this and that my future and past can never reconcile. 

I find Lea’s contact in my phone and text him.

‘You up?’

His response is immediate.

Lea: Well, I’m in a sleeping bag on Cid’s floor, so yeah.

My gut twists.

‘Does he hate me?’

Lea: No, he’s pissed at me for not pulling your head out of your ass.

‘Do you hate me?’

Lea: You destroyed our home.

Lea: You destroyed worlds that meant everything to us.

Lea: You looked at all of us at home and walked out, you said you didn’t trust me, I don’t take back what I said about you.

He did call me a monster, but he never said he hated me, and I don’t know if that counts for something but I consider Isa and wonder if maybe it can count for anything.

‘I know I’m shitty and toxic. But I do love you.’

Lea: You love yourself, it’s so hard on us playing these games. I meant what I said, I’m gonna make you change your mind.

‘I know. But you’re fucking dumb if you think I love myself. And I’m not taking back a thing I’ve done.’

There’s a moment where I stare at the sterile, white blue light my phone beams at me, then he responds.

Lea: I don’t know how you expect me to make this work. I don’t know how you ever thought you could continue on this path, how you could kill off entire worlds and I would still want to be with you.

‘Well, I’m hopeful. I know you’re not anymore, but I already told you, hope makes me stupid.’

Lea: Hope doesn’t make you stupid, Rueks. What makes you stupid is that you’ve forgotten what line is too far to cross. When is enough? Who the fuck else has to die for you to be satisfied.

‘To be honest, it doesn’t matter to me who dies as long as you live.’

Isn’t that the line? Isn’t that the only one that counts? I know it’s fucked up, logically, to contemplate who I can stomach losing and who I can’t, but I tried not to live that way, and where the hell did it get me? Maybe my only option is to play the fucking game until I smash into the my ambitions, and maybe Lea should understand that better than anyone.

Lea: Baby, you need help.

My heart needs a tourniquet, he’s got it bleeding on the ground.

‘Do you regret having me kill Zexion to keep me alive in Oblivion? Do you regret lying to me about being a Nobody to help preserve my identity? Do you regret leaving me alone for Saix to abuse while you did what it took to save us, when it got our hearts back in the end?’

Lea: YES! I’d take back all of those things if I could, I’ve spent the last few years trying to take back every single one of those things, because those were the cruelest things I could’ve done to you!

‘Maybe you shouldn’t regret them.’

Lea: Maybe you should realize that if you’re comparing what you are doing now to what I did before you helped me rediscover my own humanity, that the choices you’re making are not the right ones.

‘I’m stomaching the means to get to the end. I forgive you for everything you did to preserve us, I need you to either forgive me when this is done, or acknowledge that you weren’t as bad as you believed you were and I’m not as bad as you think I am. These are still shades of gray.’

Lea: They aren’t. And I don’t think I can do either of those things if you don’t turn around.

Lea: Fuck, Rueki, I needed you to lead me to morality, I didn’t realize you walked away from that path to lead me there. 

My free hand clenches into a fist, tears burn my eyes, I’m about to bash the phone into the ground, because once again, the most he’s willing to give is the least amount possible and the closest I can get, ever, is two steps back.

But then I remember my lover is still asleep in our bed, so I type up a text and pray against the odds that it’ll mean something.

‘I love you, goodnight.’

Lea: Love you too, Rueks. Doesn’t change anything.


	51. Chapter 51

L.

Something is terribly wrong.

My first impression when I start to stir, is that I’ve newly acquired sleep paralysis on my lengthy list of defects and disorders. I’m not necessarily familiar with the sensation, but when I wake up and parts of my brain still feels foggy, like I’m asleep and I cannot bring myself to move, that comes across as the most logical possibility. So I try to rouse myself. I think about stretching out an arm, long and lean. I think about curling my fingers up into the palm of my hand and then releasing them. I feel the waters I’m trapped beneath start to part, as though I’m kicking my way to the surface. And then, as I break through, gulping for air, it’s like hands push me straight back under.

“--not supposed to be there.” That’s Luxu’s voice, but I’m not really surprised, I guess I should expect the person whose bed I share, to be speaking beside me. Maybe he’s talking in his sleep, though he’s never exactly done that before. I rustle, trying to find the water’s edge once more, but yet again, it’s like I’m shoved under before I can fully take a breath. It’s saturating my thoughts, coating my mind with the type of residue that urges me back under, reminds me how peaceful it would be to drift away once more.

“You couldn’t have known. You want to talk about wild cards, he’s the worst of the bunch.” There’s the Master’s voice, though I couldn't even begin to fathom what he might be talking about and the haziness in my mind is far from ebbing. 

“You’re telling me. The two of them are a combination I’m really not fond of.” Luxu speaks again, and it pulls at my curiosity, makes me want to tread water, just for a little bit longer. “You really think they can make a difference though? It’s not exactly like they’re friends.”

“Well why else would Ava have forged that toxic of a bond? It’s a shot in the dark but it’s not...improbable. The odds look worse with her taking part in destroying Twilight Town.” The Master says, and red lights go off in my head, blinking like alarms. Me, I realize! He’s talking about me! And that makes me want to kick further, to thrash in the water until the surface is nothing more than a window I can peer through. “It’s not irepariable though, things are just about to be a bit more difficult for you. Sorry kid.”

“When aren’t they?” Luxu gripes, something about his tone takes on a biting quality and I wonder if he’s still talking about me, but I don’t have to wonder long. “Your pep talk with her went south.”

“I wasn’t banking on you already being so fed up with her, that’s my bad. If you would’ve been compassionate, it would have been game changing, like cutting off dead ends. It should’ve been the marker for her to let go of the past and accept it for what it was.” The Master explains. From beneath the surface, my mouth takes on the taste of bile, I wonder how much of this is real and how much I’m making up, filling the gaps in my own head. If this could all be a dream, maybe I could take a real breath when it all ends. 

“Look, it’s just...it’s not what I expected with her. I’m not trying to be ungrateful or anything, it’s just...a lot. All the time. She can’t handle it on her own, and here I was, thinking everything was all gonna be a breath of fresh air the second she laid down her defenses and came crawling to me. But she’s worse than ever.” Luxu’s voice trails off, and I can’t tell if weights are around my ankles and I’m sinking deeper, or if his melancholy just has him distant, but I’m torn between natural curiosity and simply deciding that I don’t want to know his doubts, his concerns. I don’t want to layer them on top of mine, but always, knowledge is too tantalizing a temptation. 

“You two seem to be glued to each other.” The Master assesses. “She’s your guiding key, she’s not supposed to make your life easy, kiddo, she’s supposed to make you, you.” There’s a fair amount of mirth twinkling the Master’s voice, it propels me, ammunition to push against the edges of the surface.

“Sure, maybe that’s it.” Luxu concedes, but heaves a sigh. “She’s just… she gets in these moods and she’s the human equivalent to an anvil.”

My mouth goes dry as parchment. 

I break the surface, there’s a soft gasp.

“She’s not staying under.” Luxu chokes and I realize right away what he’s doing, that this sleep spell is his doing, that he’s the reason that I can’t break the surface, but that’s not the reason I’m setting the water around me to a boil.

‘She’s an anvil that we have to pick up and carry with us everywhere we go, she’s dead weight, but we have to lug her along…’

Skuld’s voice pounds at the insides of my head, I see Kairi’s face in my mind, growing red, growing hot, rage that she shouldn’t be able to feel, driving her. I remember how icy cold my chest felt, how it seemed like an ice pick found its way into my heart. It works its way again now, somehow this is worse.

“I’ve got a plan. For now, she needs unconditional support. And remember about Vanitas.” The Master says, so quickly, but I burst through, eyes flying wide, gasping wildly as I sit straight up, blankets pooling at my waist. Thankful for the night shirt I don, horror creeps in, because I don’t think this was a dream at all. I see Luxu beside me, fully dressed. I see the Master in the chaise at the edge of the room. I fist the sheets. “Well morning there, sleeping beauty. This might be the longest you’ve been out in the time you’ve been here.” 

I look from the Master to Luxu, to the Master again.

“Seemed like you were having some hellish dreams, squirt. You’ve been tossing and turning all night.” Luxu pats my leg, through the blankets, but I hardly settle. I know what gaslighting looks like when I see it and was able to pick it out in Xemnas when Axel couldn’t. What makes Luxu think I could actually be blinded by him? I know what it’s like to have a man I’m involved with lie to me every step of the way, be so shifty, be so twisted--

But that was lifetimes ago, it strikes me. Lea hasn’t been Axel for years and even then, Axel wasn’t the monster that strung me along to forward someone’s agenda since we made it out of Castle Oblivion. I decide entirely, in this moment, that he is not accountable for the mistakes of his past any longer. Not the way I understand I need to hold Luxu accountable for what he is doing in the present.

Still, the Master’s presence unnerves me most of all. Was I naive to look at this superhuman as a mentor? Or am I hyper cynical now, to be thinking whatever his veiled guiding was, was harmful? Once again, I realize the person I trust the least is myself, but Luxu is a close second. Every fiber of my body wants to recoil, to inch away from the hand on my leg. But I force my mind into something blank, into something too well practiced from so long of pinching off the edges of my empathy link. It’s a shroud, it’s the rose colored glasses that I’m well aware Luxu wants me looking at him through. I smile, convincing and restful.

“You should’ve woken me up, jackass.” I say, with a pointed lilt in my voice, teasingly swatting at his hand. Like this is fun, like I mean it. He cackles and throws an arm around my shoulder, and I call this a victory, whether because he no longer finds the depths of my heart interesting or because I have so thoroughly convinced him, I don’t know. I know I haven’t convinced the Master, at least not fully. Not with the way the emptiness in his hood is still directed at me. 

“Hey, you weren’t screaming, you weren’t bugging me.” Luxu shrugs, releasing me, and I think of course not. Not when it’s easier for me to just stay this miserable anvil, constantly sinking to the bottom of everything that breaks me down.

I grip the sheets a little tighter and remind my mind to shut the fuck up. Something soothing washes over me, responding to me. I don’t necessarily think it’s the Master’s doing, his hooded head cocks to the side, but I do think he senses the strength of my shroud.

“So what are you both doing here?” I ask, keeping my tone light, my face dumb, my eyes wide.

“Just a morning pow wow, nothing of import.” The Master says, standing tall, stretching his arms upward. “I’ll leave you crazy kids to your day.”

“No missions?” I ask, and try as I may to keep my thoughts blank, I contemplate whether or not Vanitas received anything. 

“Not really too much to be done. Just finish up drawing those glyphs in the ark and we’ll be golden.” The Master replies, and with that, he leaves. 

“Alone at last.” Luxu turns predatorily to me and tucks a finger beneath my chin. I laugh like I mean it and swat his hand away.

“I’m sore from last night, give me a day or two to be able to stand right.” I tease, making my way over to the bathroom. 

“You’d probably be able to stand if you didn’t let Vanitas knock the teeth out of you.” He counters, but all I hear is ‘remember what I said about Vanitas’. 

Defiance is my nature, but maybe for the first time, Axel’s urging to me, years ago, registers in my mind. Play the game.

“Maybe.” I just say, and disappear behind the safety of the bathroom door.

\--

Inside of the ark, I’m as frozen as I’ve ever been, I’m hyper aware of the hollow echo of my footsteps as they pound in my heart. I’m most aware of my phone in my pocket, of the weight of it, and I’m susceptible in the worst of ways, sinking down in the middle of all of my creations.

‘I still miss the hell out of you.’

A response comes right away.

Kairi: You didn’t look like it. You looked like you were being an asshole.

Kairi: But you also looked really, really scared.

I almost smash my phone to the floor, because I’m not scared and I’m not holding back and whatever liability the realm--or the Master-- is convinced I am, I don’t know how to persuade it otherwise, it’s like every choice I make digs me impossibly deeper.

‘I’m not having this talk. You should stay in Radiant Garden for the time being, you should stay safe, you weren’t the one who kicked me out, it wasn’t fair that I was taking shit out on you, but the fact of the matter is, Kai, we’re on opposite sides. This is the best I’ve got for you.’

Kairi: The best you’ve got? Are you serious? Rueki, anyone can see how messed up you are over this, I can’t force you to realize you’re lying to yourself, and I’m not listening to anyone tell me, all over again that I need to stay in one world to stay safe. I honestly just hope you figure this out sooner than later. There’s nothing you could do that would lose me, but it does scare me to death, what you’re becoming.

My immediate response is ‘fuck off’. Instead, I find something with sharper teeth, harder bite.

‘I cannot wait to rip the light you once promised me straight from your chest. I take back missing you, go straight to hell, you and every single one of you hiding out in my fucking godfather’s house. Maybe if I even gave half a shit about you in the first place, you’d have been able to keep me at home. Tough fucking luck.’

I take my phone and pitch it straight across the ark. It hits the floors, but is frustratingly durable. The glass cracks, but it lights up with a response from her, I don’t look at it, I finish drawing on the floor, cap the marker like I’m trying to stab it, grab my phone off the floor and storm out.

I’m not looking at the ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t enough to save your heart’ response from her. I’m not thinking about it, I don’t feel guilty, I don’t feel anything except a deep sense of pride for the sigils I drew on the floor, an array in a circle recreating the seven sigils I used to transform Scala ad Caelum into Daybreak Town, at the very center, the circle I drew in the woods with Lea. Equal parts magic and alchemy, tailor made, created by someone who is also equal parts magic and alchemy, made with the sole intention of channeling life force. Of bringing back the dead. How anyone can think I waver on something that means so much to me, is beyond me. How anyone can think I look scared or that I’m becoming anything other than the person I’m meant to be, is fucking ignorant. 

I promptly make my way back to mine and Luxu’s room, and this time I’m the one waiting for his arrival. When he returns, I waste no time, flinging myself across the room, straight into his arms. My hands fist his hair, my legs wrap around his waist, I start biting at his lips and neck and jaw.

“Done being sore?” He groans when I suck a particularly sensitive spot beneath his ear.

“Yeah.” I just say before I knock the both of us onto the floor. The pain in my legs and the screaming in my heart are almost immediately silenced when he traces a finger down my neck and shoots light straight into my pulse points.

It’s better than air, it’s more than breathing. 

\--

“Got another for ya.” From where I’m tucked in the bay window of the Master’s study, he regards me. Bleary eyed, sleep deprived, can’t escape the dreams about Sterlitzia where we’re both devoured by a pink haze and flower petals, me. The sun has not quite risen in Daybreak Town.

“I didn’t realize anyone else was up yet.” I admit, tucking my hair behind my ear. I’m thinking about the book of Al Bhed mythology that I was just reading. Not about Lea, not about Kairi. I tug down the veil in my mind like shades, halting my thoughts dead in their tracks. 

“Well, I was just out admiring the work you did in the ark. It’s good, sugar. Real good.” The Master informs me. Maybe it’s a good thing, the way I stretch and swell, pride spilling out from inside my chest. Maybe it makes me naive, after the conversation I overheard with him and Luxu, but I get the distinct impression, the more I get to know of both of them, that my initial inclinations toward Luxu and away from the Master were dead wrong. One is clearly looking out for himself only. The other might actually be looking out for me. “And I figured you were probably itching to move onto something else, so I’ve got another mission for you.”

“There are still worlds left to collapse?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

“One.” He admits. “But it’s been hard to pin down.” I know instantly where he’s referring to, fear does make my mouth run dry, but I think there is no better way to show everyone with a shadow of a doubt, just how serious I am about this cause. Just how much there is no spinning me back.

“And you finally locked down the Mysterious Tower.” I predict. The Master nods.

“I knew you were a smart cookie.” He pats the top of my head and I set the book aside, curling my feet beneath me, like I’m locked and loaded. “Mean a hell of a lot for morale if you paid the old wizard’s world a visit.”

“You don’t need to sell me on it, I want it.” And probably for the same reasons he wants me to go there. We’re both so desperate to prove my intentions and I think that’s why, despite only tolerating hate fucking Luxu for light until the war is over, I’m not inherently upset with the Master. Maybe it would be a good thing to have someone genuinely looking out for the things I want and need.

“And that’s what I like about you, sugar. You’re a go getter.” He informs me. “Get rid of this world and the next week will be all yours.” But I know what he’s insinuating for the end of the week. My stomach drops and manually, I’m forced to crank it up before the Master can even sense a shift.

“Right, I’ll go grab one of the others to cover me.” I nod.

“Sure, and then Luxu can drop you two off, he knows the coordinates, I’m sure he’ll want to wish you luck.” The Master says, but I’m pretty sure ‘wish me luck’ means don’t bring Vanitas along for whatever reason. Probably cuz we’re an all consuming mess. Maybe it would be better to have someone more stable at my side. “I’d recommend Ludor, but the way.”

“Because you’ve seen me succeed with him?” I ask.

“No, I haven’t seen you succeed at all.” The Master tells me, which has my eyes going wide. “I can’t see anything in the Mysterious Tower. Old Yen Sid has about a thousand and one cloaking spells on the place, my blind spots are pretty minimal, but he’s found a way into them. Having Ludor on your side means having time on your side. You might want that if there’s a chance you’ll clash with a powerful wizard.”

I chew on my lips, contemplating his words, contemplating what I heard him say to Luxu about having a plan. Maybe about me, maybe about Vanitas, I don’t know. But it is interesting that he’s sending me to do something I can’t see. Still, all of my suspicions are easily brushed aside because I want this too. So I offer him a placid smile and easy eyes.

“Good looking out. I’ll see you when I make the last world on the list blink out.”

\--

“Are you unable to offer us the coordinates of the Mysterious Tower?” Ludor asks as he stands with his arms crossed, in the bedroom Luxu and I share. 

While Ludor had no qualms assisting me in my task, even when I told him just where we were going, he abruptly took on a far more sour mood the second I told him Luxu would be leading us.

“Easy there, Poker Face.” Luxu grins, shaking his head. “Forgive a guy for wanting to see his girl off. Besides, just because we locked down the coordinates doesn’t mean the old wizard won’t try to pull a switcheroo on us. I know space a little better than both of you, I can get the best feel on the location out of anyone here.” I can’t tell if Luxu’s winking at me, but I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that it’s a wink, so I screw up my face like I’m still having fun. 

“As if I’d leave you to your own devices, squirt.” I say, in a stupid voice. He snorts, but I think it’s mostly out of pity. “It’s a joke, it’s okay to laugh, it was funny.” I can’t help but think who did laugh when I made fun of his stupid catch phrase. I can’t help but think of all of the reasons my relationship with Luxu is unsatisfying.

“Don’t quit your day job, little Rueki.” He does the wink-blink thing again and I tell myself it’s just until the end of the war, when light is something I can freely access and no longer need to rely on him for. Luxu waves his hand, opening up a portal. Ludor leads the way through and just as I’m about to follow, Luxu grabs my arm, pulling our bodies flush against each other. “No love you or kiss goodbye?” He teases, using his other hand to tilt my chin upward. His body fits so snug, so securely against mine. For a second, I almost wish the chemistry translated elsewhere.

I lean up on my toes and twine my arms around his neck. He meets me halfway and when our lips touch, he pushes light into my veins so I’m shaking, so that I’m aching, so that I’m actually looking forward to returning home, knowing that for both of us, this is only the sweetest little taste of the night.

“I love you.” I breathe.

“There’s a girl.” He pats my ass. “Now get. Go do your job so I can do mine.” 

And with that, I head straight through the portal. Ludor’s eyes find me as the portal snaps shut behind us. Almost immediately, I get chills. Just staring up at the tower in front of us is suddenly foreboding and feels nothing like the stronghold I recall it being. 

“I think I just want to get this over with.” I announce. Ludor looks at me, eyebrow lifted, head cocked to the side.

“So much for the bloodthirsty thing you were when we raided the Land of Departure.” He says. I open my mouth to protest, but he shakes his head. “Good riddance, I’d say. I don’t think there’s any sense in either of us taking pleasure in such a task. Purging worlds is gross, underhanded business.”

I bite my lips.

“We’ll feel better when this is done.” I offer and he nods, finding his way once more to being the friend I need him to be.

“When all of this is done.” He agrees, and though the idea wasn’t mine, I’m happy I brought Ludor along. Caught up in Vanitas, I’ve had such a hard time getting out of my heart and my head and while I think it might be a bit helpful to be so introspective, I don’t know what more good I can do inside my own head.

And with that, we head straight up the massive winding staircase, which doesn’t halt us even once, before we push past the doors into the study we all met in several times before the last war. Yen Sid is however, pointedly absent this time.

“Where do you expect the old wizard is?” Ludor asks, I just shake my head.

“I’m not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth. He might be meeting the others in Radiant Garden.” I offer.

“So then we just need to make quick work of this Keyhole. Where is it, exactly?” He asks and I bite my lips.

“You know, I’m gonna guess somewhere in this room.” I make an apologetic face.

“Is your suggestion point and aim?” Ludor chuckles. 

“I mean, yeah.” I laugh, thankful for the lightness he brings back into my world. I turn to the desk Yen Sid is usually seated at, call out Backbiter, aim and no dice. I turn to the chalkboard behind the desk and--

And freeze in my tracks.

“Fuck.” I breathe, taking a huge step over to the board, fingers tracing the chalk outline of a too familiar symbol.

“Have you found it?” Ludor asks, turning around to see me shaking my head.

“I drew this symbol the other day.” I narrow my eyes. Not only the other day, but once in the woods, it’s the very symbol that burst into my mind like a bolt out of the blue in the wake of some of the darkest moments of my life. “Why would he need something to channel lifeforce?” A thousand possibilities flood my mind, I turn to Ludor hoping for some sort of answer when a door beside us creaks open. In walks Master Yen Sid. There’s a dark knowledge in his eerie eyes. I grip Backbiter like a vice, Ludor merely speculates, not even drawing his Keyblade.

“You’d do well to let down your blade, young Rueki.” Master Yen Sid offers as a greeting. 

“You’d do well to tell me what the hell you’ve been using this for.” I jut a finger at the symbol on the chalkboard in front of me, eyes narrowing as they zero in on him.

“Rueki, this is hardly--” Ludor beings, and I can tell he’s a little bit anxious. I don’t imagine a grand strategist to have any desire to take on one of the most powerful wizards in the realm. But neither of the men in the room have summoned weapons and I still don’t have my answer.

“I saw this symbol in my head in the year that Kairi and Sora were gone. I’ve drawn it twice, once on the floor in the woods and I wiped it up. And then again, the other day. How did you come up with this, what would you even need this for?” He doesn’t answer and though he doesn’t call his staff, my reflexes kick in, begging me to attack. If he’s seen this symbol, has he been in my head? Is he infiltrating my heart? Is there anything inside of me that’s safe? “Tell me!” I snap, slamming my hand onto the chalkboard. It clatters to the ground but Master Yen Sid hardly even reacts, he certainly doesn’t move from the doorway. “What are you?”

“As human as you.” Master Yen Sid replies. “As the both of you.”

“And to that extent, capable of what few others are.” Ludor murmurs. 

“You are correct. You have lived many lives Ludor. Mastered fate in ways that mortals typically cannot. And Rueki, you are the thing of prophecy, home to as many hearts as Sora.” Master Yen Sid observes.

“If I wanted a diagnosis on the condition of my heart, I’d have asked for it. Answer the damn question, I drew that sigil, I know what it’s for, do you?” I ask, pointing once again. 

“Perhaps you should be concerned not about what I know, but about which ancient magic you were born with in your veins that you can trust.” Master Yen Sid contemplates. 

“Fuck you.” I hiss.

“I am hardly looking for a fight. Protecting this tower is no longer a concern, now that you’ve extinguished every bit of gray area in the realm. Your destruction might serve a completionist’s desire, but it will not render you any more successful.” Yen Sid warns me. I turn to Ludor, pressing my lips.

“You heard him. He doesn’t care about this world anymore. Why don’t you go find the Keyhole while I talk with the wizard?” My hands are shaking. Rage pumps hot and heavy through me along with so many speculations. Every second Yen Sid doesn’t answer my question, I concoct deadlier and deadlier possibilities. 

Ludor flashes me a warning look, but Master Yen Sid draws a deep breath like he’s not rattled in the least.

“The Keyhole is in the mirror in the room behind me. You are welcome to it, Ludor.” Yen Sid offers, stepping aside. For a moment, I see even less resolve in Ludor than there was in him the day we touched down in the Land of Departure. But I grit my teeth and encourage him with the nod of my head until he takes off, through the doors.

“Why do you have a symbol for mass rebirth? Even trying to use it would take everything from you, you would need otherworldly power to activate it, what purpose would you need it for?” I demand, as soon as the door shuts upon Ludor’s departure. “Was this the excuse you used for not rushing to our aid until after we all died once in the last war? You didn’t need your safety net until then?” I take a predatory step forward, but Yen Sid remains still, looking at me from down the tip of his nose, as though I’m microscopic. Someone is taking a blowtorch to my blood. “I asked you a question.”

“And I’ve no need to grant an answer to an enemy of the realm. You have the ability to step back, to make the choice to keep your friends and loved ones safe from the consequences of this dark path you take. I beg of you, do so before the choices you make have permanent penalties, because whether this world perishes or not, every action yields a reaction.” He doesn’t beg though, he orders, which I find to be rich, all things considered.“You think yourself above the punishment this realm deals?” He asks.

“No.” I hiss. “What this realm can or cannot do to me isn’t my concern though. You wouldn’t even be, but I know that symbol is made to shuttle energy, I know it’s not made for anything peaceful. It requires massive amounts of energy, inhuman amounts. You are still leading people I’m trying to preserve.” I remind him.

“The friends you betrayed? The lover you cast aside?” Master Yen Sid asks and my face grows hot.

“You used to be someone we looked up to, that we sought for guidance. When did you become so patronizing?” 

“Something far worse has happened to you.” He settles, turning my eyes to slits with mere words. 

“Tell me, Yen Sid, who did you plan to revive? Something dark to counteract all that I’ve accomplished? Or maybe you planned to purge the little king and his pristine world? Too much light in his palace for you? Your purge his world then bring them back some place a little less squeaky clean?” I ask.

“None of us are enemies of the light, Rueki, it is those who seek decay that we are enemies of.” Yen Sid corrects.

“No then.” I drag my teeth across my lips. “And not a fail safe for us, no, you let Sora and Kairi do all the dirty work.” He finches, finally, on Kairi’s name, of all things. My face turns icy, gears start to shift in my mind. The darkest possibilities come to a head when the smoke that rumbles in my mind starts to clear. “Let me ask you, Master, for all your wisdom, what happens to the light of a Princess of Heart when she dies?” I ask, though I already know the answer. But I need to know he knows too.

Silence starts to settle, my heart picks up, I hear blood pulsing in my temples and Yen Sid won’t open his stupid, tight mouth.

“I asked you a question!” I slam Backbiter into the wall behind him, he doesn’t stagger though. Not the way he did on Kairi’s name.

“You are a fledgling Keybearer, you really think raw force will win you the knowledge you seek?” He tries, but all his silence marks is confirmation of the ugliest truth of all.

“If you answered the question, I wouldn’t have a problem. I already know the answer, so just say it.” I hiss. Let me hear him say he’s no better than any of the rest of them.

“Why do you yearn to hear a second time then, that upon the unnatural death of a Princess of Heart, her light fades?” Yen Sid asks. “You are already quite aware that you cannot strike down Kairi and pursue your fruitless path!” 

He’s right. There is only one surefire way to ensure the Master does not have enough light to fill the realm.

“You needed Kairi dead.” I breathe. 

“Sora was never meant to chase her. Her sacrifice was needed, was a blessing to the realm, her death would have ensured the Master of Masters was never successful.” Master Yen Sid shakes his head, sudden sadness overwhelming his features. I’m having the hardest time seeing his pain though when I feel mine, sense it flooding my bones, filling my lungs, suffocating my senses. 

“You were prepared to bring us back. Again and again. Whatever it took to kill her.” I breathe. “You’d have abused the Power of Waking just to keep someone out of a myth from rising?”

“The Master of Masters may be the thing of myths, but that doesn’t mean that those of us with an eye on Kingdom Hearts did not sense a shift when Kairi returned. She’d have done the realm a courtesy, she’d have saved it from this cruel fate, if Sor had not woken her.” He insists, voice seeming to grow quiet as the roar of blood rushing fills my ears. 

“Why even send her to Merlin then? Why send any of us if you just wanted to kill her?” I snap.

“You and Lea were necessary, guardians of the Princess, seeking atonement. You kept her safe until her light was no longer needed for the final battle. Xehanort’s war needed to see an end. He too sought out the Princesses of Heart, he’d have ensured a clash no matter what we withheld. And withhold we did. Were Sora not tempted by the Power of Waking--”

“That’s why you never showed him what it was. You never told him how to unlock it. You fed him that bullshit about his heart being his guiding key, like it made you wise to recite it, and you let Lea and I break our bones to keep safe someone you raised like a lamb for the slaughter.” I spit.

“How different, is it from what your Master of Masters has planned?”

“I’m not killing children!” I shriek.

“You are sacrificing entire worlds. I’d have one life on my hands to save hundreds of thousands.” He says, like it makes him good, like this makes him sacred, like he’s a hero.

I remember being asked once, when I was young, would I save a thousand strangers from a burning building or five friends? At the time, it’s a simple answer. Do good, be good, save the strangers.

The answer I’d give now is worlds different. It settles in for me, for Master Yen Sid. For Ludor, who bursts out of the door behind him, blue eyes frantic. 

“You should leave.” I whisper to Ludor.

“We’d all best evacuate.” He tells me. “This world is bound for darkness, just as we planned.”

“And so many more.” Master Yen Sid reminds me, like it’s my fault he let Kairi die, like it’s my fault Naminé linked me to Sora, like it’s my fault he chased her and I chased him. Like it’s my fault there’s a very obvious reason no one has ever given a fuck about Kairi’s footing.

Like the Master’s very waking was solely in my hands.

Maybe it is. But only because Yen Sid himself, thrust it into them. 

“I have things I need to settle, if you can’t handle that, you need to go.” I hiss.

“Rueki, we addressed that this is not something we need to take grotesque pleasure in.” Ludor tries.

“Go!” I scream at Ludor, shaking, trembling, nostrils flared, eyes wide. If he’s not going to help me close my hands around Yen Sid’s throat, then I’m making sure he doesn’t hang around to stop me. I feel my pulse, hot, cutting like a knife against the veins in my neck. I take a huge step toward the old master, cracking my neck. The darkness works swiftly, it’s already starting to shake the world around us. I’ll have to make this quick.

“You would give your life to ensure I remain in the dark?” Master Yen Sid asks, looking me over. I tighten my hold on Backbiter, demented smile curling like burnt edges of paper across my pitch black lips.

“Oh yes.” I leap, pulling my blade back as I whirl through slamming it down toward him. Yen Sid is quick, moving with a burst of light, across the room. My head snaps, eyes wide with rage. “Thundaza!” It comes off of my fingers like claws, but with the wave of the mighty staff now in his hands, he hurls it back at me. I shriek as I eat the brunt of my best spell, my head smacking against the wall behind me. “She’s going to know, they’re all going to! I’m going to look Sora in the eyes and tell him you’d have killed Kairi to have your way, was any of this worth it?”

“And what when your Master demands you end her? Or Lea? Or Roxas, will any of that be worth it?” Master Yen Sid asks, one hand ready, prepared for defense. 

“I don’t answer to unreasonable orders.” 

“If you are truly naive enough to believe you can have the future you’ve been shown without it costing the lives of those you love, then truly, young Rueki, I pity you.” This sets off a fuse in my head. I dive at him, he opens a portal and falls through. I go to leap after him and--

And in the shifting of the darkness, the roof caves in, a shingle smashes into my arm and--

Oh fuck.

I see white, my body curls up, Yen Sid’s portal closes behind him and I’m trapped on the ground, darkness raining down on me, pain eating up the flesh of my arm, snatching my breath, short circuiting my brain.

Cognitive functioning has left me. I pull my hand up from the wreckage.

The floor is soaked. My arm is soaked. There’s so-- so much blood I--

My hand is gone. Everything from the middle of my forearm down is gone. I’m gonna bleed out on this fucking floor and I--

“I’ve got you, love. I’ve got you.” A gentle voice is in my ear, I let Ludor scoop me into his arms. My belly lurches, my body spasms. I scream, thinking if I can tear my throat to ribbons, maybe some of this pain will go away. “Hang in there, I’m taking you home.”

He waves his hand, we disappear through a portal and barely make it through to a room that I process as familiar, but barely see before I hit the ground, clutching the stump of my arm, willing the blood to just stop flowing.

“What the fuck?” Luxu chokes.

“What happened to her?” I hear a female voice, Invi’s. She rushes to me, so does Luxu and the Master. I jolt on the ground, seizing and spasming and begging until blackness eats at the corners of my eyes and I sigh.

Thank Twilight. I know this part. Hello old friend.


	52. Chapter 52

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell of a cliff hanger, huh? I know, I'm the worst

LI.

The thing about losing a limb, is that no matter how many times your eyes process the fact that something is missing, your mind can never fully keep up. 

I wake up most mornings, phantom pains throbbing in harsh vibrations at the nub where half of my forearm is missing. Something in me wants to scream but then I wonder why I bother in the first place. It’s not going to make my arm reform, it’s not going to fast forward me to a future where my former friends take pity on me and decide to let us just restore the realm because they decide the scales are balanced and I’ve lost enough. So I choke it all down, and with one hand, I drag the covers back over my shell.

No one has answered my frantic texts, sent one handed, riddled with spelling errors, detailing graphically what Master Yen Sid told me about how he was willing to sacrifice Kairi. My guess is he got to them before I did, and to be honest, if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t trust the girl destroying home worlds for sport.

Luxu was not at all distraught when I said I wanted to sleep alone in my old room. The two nights we tried to pretend we could both handle the whole getting cozy and holding each other through the night thing, were just shy of miserable. Boring as hell for him and reigniting my desire to scream at him that there are just certain things I can’t let go of. When I’m with him, I want to sneak into the bathroom and check my phone, I want to hold my breath on a message Lea won’t send, I want to call Kairi again in hopes that just hearing her voice will give me the clarity to sort my world out, I want to keep Roxas and Xion and Del and Amaya awake with me, just so I can feel surrounded by what used to be and what certainly won’t again. It was for the better that I relieved Luxu of the burden of booting me out by placing a gente kiss against his cheekbone last night and urging him to get some rest.

The dreams don’t stop, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to sleep. In fact, it’s all I’m really interested in doing anymore. There are piles of forgotten research notes stacked on top of my dresser. I could be outside drawing glyphs in the ground, sealing explosives to trigger the ark’s transmutation, I could be doing a lot of things. The rain’s finally starting to let up, I think I probably should’ve just let the Master keep me here until after the storm passed. 

I hear Sterlitzia’s voice even when I’m awake, ringing in the back of my head. She urges me like she does most nights, to let her in when the time comes. Another voice in my dreams has started telling me ‘all or nothing, in the heart’. I don’t know what that means, the voice belongs to the woman in pink, but if I’m honest, I hardly have the emotional stamina to dissect my nightmares.

A knock on the door is the biggest indicator that the Master is coming to visit and that Luxu is not up. The fact that it seems like only the Master, Vanitas and I are ever up this early, is also a good indicator.

“Oh sugar.”I pop just the top of my head out from beneath the blankets. He shakes his head, standing in the frame of my door. “You’re looking as bad as ever.”

“Mmm.” Is all I say. 

Luxu only stops in once a day to check on me and give me a shot of lux, and when he used to light up my heart several times a day, I feel every bit of the withdrawal. I’m sure I do look like shit, if how I feel is any indication. My heart feels shaky and trembling like it’s somehow aged lifetimes, pushed beyond its brink. I think the only thing that might make me feel even a little better is him giving me twice as much as he ever has. Being without light is like being told I can breathe once a day, can intake oxygen once a day. I don’t know how I’m supposed to look at the reflection that haunts the mirror in my peripheral vision without it.

Fuck, I can’t even face it, with it. 

“That’s not a good face.” The Master walks over and places the chess set at the edge of my bed and starts setting it up, despite the way I’m still curled under covers. What an unpleasant time he’s going to have, playing by himself. 

“I don’t want to play.” I mutter.

“You still have one good hand. He reminds me, like that counts for a fucking thing.

“Need two for alchemy, to fight with a Keyblade, to push myself back off the ground cuz I have shitty defenses.” I mumble, pinching my eyes shut, trying to scrub my thoughts clean of the screaming, persistent anxiety that sounds off at all hours of the day, in my mind.

“You need one to play chess.” Is all he replies with. When I open my eyes, the blankness in his hood is gazing at me and I want to scream.

“Why the fuck do you wear that thing anyway, why does no one get to see your face?” I snap. He doesn’t even falter.

“Well the old legends say that if you see the true form of a god, you’ll go mad. I’m just saving you from incurable insanity.” He offers me, I shoot him a scathing look.

“Douchelord Supreme.” I mutter. The Master chuckles and ruffles the bit of my hair peeking out of the blankets. I shift my weight, working myself upward to a sitting position, another thing to check off the list as being harder now that I’m missing a fucking hand. I emerge from the blankets and look down at the bandages wrapped around the nub of my arm. I see Amaya’s in my mind, imagine her after the explosion, imagine what she must think of me or even have to say to me. 

I guess the bright side is there is no possible way in the realm she could possibly hate me more than I hate me.

“I can’t even fucking fight.” I breathe, dragging my teeth across my lips. It’s worse than the pain that still throbs from the edge of my arm. “I can’t even… how do I take Kairi’s light, how do I fight in this war, how am I supposed to do fucking anything other than rot around in this goddamn bed? I’m gonna lose Luxu, I’m gonna lose my ability to fulfill my fucking destiny, I’m gonna...gonna.. Goddammit!” I take the one hand I have left, whirl around and throw my pillow straight at the mirror, like I can suffocate the woman inside of it. I scream and hunch over, curling my knees up and setting one arm across them, using that as a rest for my head. Tears leak hot and heavy down my face and I’m so goddamn mad about them, so fucking pissed, but they hit the sheets and it just agrivates me more, because what’s even the damn point? I reached my swan song for a girl I just threatened a few days ago. I dug my own fucking grave for someone I resolve I will never break my bones for again, but what does it even matter if there’s nothing left at all to break? I gave everything for a side that rejected me like an infection. I’ve never felt emptier.

“You feel better?” The Master asks, his hand touches hair that I’m too upset to even brush. It’s worse than ever, straight up matted from days in bed, and if I don’t have to fucking shave my head when this is all done, it’ll be nothing shy of a miracle. 

“No.” I whisper. “I still can’t do a fucking thing, and I don’t even...I took vengaence for someone that doesn’t even mean a thing to me anymore.”

“What did we say about depriving yourself of accepting that the past happened?” The Master asks, and I could answer straight away that I threw his little pep talk out the window, first when Luxu slammed it in my face, and then when I heard the pieces of a conversation between him and Luxu. 

But I guess anymore, guiding, whatever, it doesn’t matter. I know what I experienced, I felt what I felt, raw and real as the very skin I’m in. I felt the rage boiling beneath the fire of all that I am, when Yen Sid revealed that he lined everything in the realm up to end Kairi’s life. And now I feel the deep self loathing that I threw anything that mattered in mine away to avenge hers. 

“I didn’t say she never meant a thing to me, I said she doesn’t. She’s not my friend, she’s someone else afraid of who I’m becoming, she’s someone else who has to question everything I do. I gave and gave for the damn girl and I was the one who had to suffer when she died and now I still have to keep suffering because she didn’t.” I spit, coming upright, eyes wild like I’m some sort of feral animal. 

“Have you learned though? Have you learned now that it’s always when you stop looking out for yourself that you fail?” The Master asks. I press my lips, he’s right, of course he is. Guiding or not, I trust where his hand leads me.

“It doesn’t matter. None of the prosthetics in this realm can support the damage I inflict on my body on the regular. One of what Amaya has would break within the first fifteen minutes of battle. It won’t even mean a goddamn thing to have one until after the war is over and at that point, what the fuck does it mean to pretend I had purpose in it? I can line everything up, but I don’t get to participate? That’s the biggest load of horse shit, I can’t even look at myself, I don’t even want to be in the same room as myself, I’m sure as fuck Luxu won’t be able to put up with me, because who wants to be around someone that feels like this?” I cry out. Silence follows, like I struck a gong. The Master reaches out and pats my cheek.

“Luxu’s not going anywhere, if you need proof of that, you could ask him yourself.” The Master insists and I almost snap defiantly, and remind him what I’m sure we both already know, that I heard his conversation with Luxu in our bedroom a week and a half ago. But there’s something very careful in my heart that demands I keep my mouth shut for preservation’s sake Once more a glaze falls over my heart, like once more I’m choking the ends of my empathy link, and I guess that’s a useful defense mechanism. “And as for your arm, I found you one that can more than withstand the way you abuse your body. And you’re right, it’s not in this realm.”

“Not that Achoo word…” My voice dipes down and I understand immediately, that if I venture down into that world, something grippingly dark will ensure I am never the same.

“No, no. Midgar.” Well that might be worse. My gut starts to churn, I don’t think I’m going to be able to face bright eyes, angular features, red hair and that goddamn voice.

Maybe I will be able to face it, but maybe I’ll take him up on his previous offer and just never come home. Hide in a world with plates and districts and eco terrorists and just be thankful that my magical prowess is above and beyond what that realm is capable of. Damn, a world without latent magic and shit constantly hitting the fan, what an absolute dream that would be.

“There’s another face.” The Master teases, I just lean forward and grab the chess set up. “Oh, you wanna play, now?”

“I know better than to think you’re giving me a choice. If I’m gonna lose, I’d rather get it over with.” I roll my eyes. He chuckles and takes the set from me, setting it up while I adjust myself and try not to think of the phantom pains at the edge of my arm.

“Smart girl.” He says, and with that, he starts setting up the board and when it is finished, makes his move. I respond carelessly, without even thinking. “You’re funny, you know? You lose your arm and you freak out about not being able to fight.”

“I just want everything I’m doing to be worth it.” I admit as he makes his move. Once again, I move reactively, going with my gut rather than trying to anticipate. 

“And it’s not worth it if you don’t get to fight? Even if the outcome is the same?” He asks. I shake my head and he makes another move. “That’s kinda funny, coming from someone chasing peace.”

He’s right, it is.

“It’s different. Actively chasing a solution versus just kind of falling into one.” I say as I make another move. He knocks one of my Rooks off the board, but I immediately follow by taking his Knight. 

“Do you think you’ve ever been made for peace?” He asks me. I wince. “Hey, just asking honestly. You thrive when you’re caught in the momentum. I know it’s a lot, but you straddle stress with the type of ease most humans aren’t capable of. It’s a rare trait, you should be proud. Not a lot of people make active choices in their destiny.”

“It’s only cuz I’m a cynic. I don’t believe in destiny like it’s something magical. I believe in the destiny that I create.” I explain to him. “This is the destiny I want, I’m manifesting it.”

“In a world of soulmates, superhumans made of corrupt light, Keyblades, darkness and light, time travel, all of that...and you still want to try to be cynical?” The Master asks and finally I smile.

“That’s what makes me, me.” He makes another move, pursuing my Queen, but I step in with a Bishop and he backs off.

It’s move after move like this, back and forth. He takes my other Rook, I confiscate nearly all of his pawns. And to be honest, I almost don’t even realize what I’ve done, until I do it. My Bishop defends my Queen, which he’s been trying relentlessly to take. I move it, he goes to make another move then looks around the board, frozen in place. He goes to make another move then stops himself, and then he hums softly, shaking his head.

“Do you even realize you should’ve called checkmate?”

I don’t, my jaw drops, my eyes widen.

“Oh…” I breathe, looking around, trying for the life of me to figure out how midless instincts guided me toward defeating someone who is able to see any and all possible outcomes.

“Someone’s had a lot of time to rest her mind.” He teases.

“It doesn’t actually shut up. You just got cocky.” I smile, softly. I guess that must happen occasionally, especially to someone who is used to always winning. 

“No, you can pat yourself on the back for that. That’s the reward you reap from constantly getting back up after a defeat. Luxu and Ira both used to play chess with me too, but they gave up a lot quicker than you did. The world’s only as fair as we force it to be, after all.”

And it feels like I’m desperately squeezing the pieces of what is right and what is good together, begging them to make some sort of sense for me. Maybe that’s what I should’ve said, maybe that would have swayed the people I have back home. I don’t need a world where everything sparkles and nothing hurts, I just want one where the things that kill me will compensate me in the end. I don’t want to die, but most importantly, I don’t want to die thinking every action has been moot and the things I wore myself to the bone for just wasted my energy. 

“What do I do when all of this is over?” I ask. “What if things still don’t feel fair? I guess that’s what scares me.”

“Well, that’s what the light’s for.” He explains. I want to rip my own skin off.

“I hate being dependent on anyone for anything.” I shake my head.

“It’s not dependent if your loved one is happy to give it to you, sugar.” But it is, and it’s become some filthy addiction for both of us. I need the light to tolerate myself as much as Luxu needs it to tolerate me. Neither of us are capable of handling the open wound quality my heart has taken on, and I don’t know how either of us are ever supposed to feel better about our relationship, or improve ourselves if we’re stuck in this rut of digging ourselves deeper.

I know I’m leaving him in the end, but for fuck’s sake, if Lea doesn’t take me back, I’m still trying to figure out what to do. 

“I shouldn’t have been so reckless.” I admit. “Yen Sid anticipated our arrival, it’s not like he was going to let us take the Mysterious Tower without getting something for himself.”

“Well next time that happens, just make sure you’re quicker than your smartest adversary. Don’t need you losing any other body parts.” He chuckles as he packs up the chess set.

The Master departs, the chessboard beneath his arm and I’m left, biting my lips, legs curled beneath me, holding perfectly still until I hear the door latch behind him. With too much eagerness, I grab at my phone, praying to anything that will listen, that there will be some sort of message waiting from Lea or Kairi or anyone who believes even the scraps of what I’ve said.

Instead, there’s a message number I don’t have saved.

Unknown: Word on the street is that you like to blow up wizards.

I blink, staring down at the message, intrigued more than anything else. Whoever this is knows exactly the type of games I like to play.

‘Well I got told I should spend less time on my back, so I figured I’d pick up a different hobby’.

I send the message and almost immediately, there is a reply.

Unknown: And it took three whole years for you to take that advice to heart? 

‘I’m a slow learner’

I attach the middle finger emoji about four times just for good measure.

Unknown: Undoubtedly. But rather thorough when it comes to watching the world burn.

‘Well, you know what they say about kindness being weakness’

Unknown: I’ve heard something about it. I guess I’m just curious about the motivations.

‘Oh, no one’s told you that I’m the bad guy now?’

Who is this?

Unknown: Master Yen Sid had a few things to say. His sentiments were echoed by parties you probably would rather not know about. But being that you left me to clean up the mess, I’d rather hear from you, why?

I blink.

‘What mess?’

Unknown: Well someone has to wipe Lea’s tears. He doesn’t take kindly to me taking videos of him sobbing and threatening to send them to you, but I think you get the point.

Sending videos. Cleaning up the mess. Someone that knows exactly the type of banter to keep me entertained.

Isa.


	53. Chapter 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, friends! We'll have a new chapter up in 'Tempest' this Friday finally! For now, have some Rueki

LII.

I go on a date with Reno, and my guilty conscience acts as our chaperone. Well, kind of.

I open a portal straight into actual hell, with Isa on my mind in the worst of ways. It’s actual shit when I can only blame myself for where I’m spit out into the realm, but with Reno in my thoughts, I walk straight into what might be the basement of a warehouse in Midgar, only to hear an electric crackle and loud cursing.

“Shiva’s fucking tits!” Reno, definitely Reno though I can’t see him. His voice is burned into the back of my mind, scorched like hands that cup my face and lips that singe mine. Charred the way his last message has been, into me. Burning, like my hands, to send him the third text of the morning. He didn’t respond to the first message I sent him about Yen Sid, detailing, graphically-- and frenzied-- why the old wizard isn’t worth our trust. I should have known better than to expect him to respond to my desperate pleading to just respond. “Goddamn fucking fiends. How do I always get myself into cleaning up a buncha fucking messes?”

Reno staggers out of the shadows, bright red hair vibrant even in the dark. I swallow dryly and call Backbiter to my hand. What a fucking disaster I’m bound to be. If Reno gets me an arm today, I will suck his dick, on the spot.

I can’t be left like this, I can’t be rendered so utterly helpless when this destiny I’m chasing is all that remains.

“On your left!” I announce as I dive in, effectively beheading an oversized rat looking monster. Maybe I should feel a little prouder of myself, but I get the distinct feeling that this kind of creature is about as challenging as a Neo Shadow would be. A threat for sure, but nothing compared to the masters I will be facing off against. 

“Rueki!” Reno’s eyes light up, bright even in the warehouse, though they flash right away to my hand. “The fuck happened to you?”

“I went to see a man about a horse.” I answer vaguely. “Thundaga!” I aim my blade’s tip straight for some monster heading our way. Okay, so magic and physical combat with lighter force are possible with one hand. 

It tastes twice as bitter when it’s almost but not quite enough. I hate the prospect of being dependant on someone for hope. Especially a borderline stranger that I should’ve just fucked in the bar.

“And the horse ate your hand?” Reno asks.

“Sure.” I answer. 

“Gods, I fucking hate nature.” He shakes his head, jabbing one of the monsters with his rod, at which point I whirl in and decapitate it, thanks to his rod’s electrifying stunning effects. “Maybe you should head outta here, sweetness. I don’t exactly got time to entertain now.”

“Cuz you were doing so well before I came in to help, mister cleanup crew.” I smile, weakly. “Don’t be salty that I’m better than you with one hand.”

“It still stands, I don’t got time to play. I’m working.” He tells me.

“That’s fine, I just need you to point me in the direction of good prosthetics.” I inform him.

“You pop in here outta nowhere to tell me you need a new hand and I’m the man in charge of getting you one?” He asks, when out of nowhere a heard of the fucking monsters start barreling at us. Reno curses. I bite down a tentative smile. Crowd control, hypothetically, I should have this in the bag.

“Thundaza!” I cry and the warehouse lights up. Not one monster is spared the dissolving effects of my spell. When the haze of fiends clears, we come across some sort of glowing orb in the shadows. Without hesitation, Reno heads in and scoops it up.

“Show off.” He calls me, though he looks more like he means ‘thanks’. 

“You don’t get to look like a monster without picking up a couple cool tricks on the way.” I hold up my nub of an arm and banish Backbiter with the flick of my wrist. Maybe if I make stupid jokes about my missing arm, I’ll start laughing too. It worked wonders on my relationship with Isa. And now he’s back on my mind, in the forefront of my thoughts. I owe him, without a doubt I owe him. If there’s any shot in hell of me being able to return to Lea when all of this is done, it will be because Isa put in the work for me that I never did for him.

Reno pauses, I notice he’s not terribly worse for the wear, but his exposed chest is a bit scratched. So I fish through my pouch--which is another thing harder to do with one hand-- and offer up a Potion.

“You’re not poisoning me, yeah?” He asks, though he snatches and drinks the damn thing without so much as a response from me. I roll my eyes.

“It was actually a big vial of alien semen, but okay.” I shrug. He chokes a little and shoots me a look through narrowed eyes. I can’t help but smile.

“I get why the horse ate your hand.” He mutters. “Shit, this is strong. It’s one of them Potion energy drinks, yeah?” 

I blink.

“It’s more medicinal than an energy drink.” I shake my head.

“Well, that’d explain it then.” He nods. “What makes you think I can get you a good prosthetic? Or at least one better than your little hole in the wall?”

“My world’s magically intuned, remember? Yours is a lot more scientifically advanced. I was given some inside intel that somewhere in Midgar I’d be able to get something that could withstand how rough I treat my body on the regular.” I cock my head to the side. Reno closes the gap between us, me with a relatively stoic face, him contemplating me like I’m somehow a threat, like we both somehow forgot I’m missing body parts. “If you can’t that’s fine, I’ll get out of your hair, but whatever you’re doing cleanup detail on, I’ll help you with that if you can get me a functional hand.”

“And you want functional enough to withstand something harsh?” Reno lifts an eyebrow, which I notice is the same color as his dark roots. So his red’s about as real as mine, some of the illusion starts to wear off. He’s so close to Lea, but just not enough.

It’s that much more disappointing.

“Like ideally something that works better than a real arm. I still have to be a tough contender. I’ve got skeevy shit to do.” I wink, reminding myself to put some damn effort into being charismatic. For once. 

“Like starting a bar fight then getting the hell outta dodge?” Reno’s weariness starts to shift into cockiness. It strikes me, as the sun starts to beam through cracks in the basement windows, how fucking careworn he looks. Tired, sad. Scratched up even after a Potion. I lean up on my toes and brush my thumb across his cheek, he blanches and catches my wrist in his hands. “You change your mind about your marriage?” He cracks this corny ass smile, I roll my eyes. 

“You look like fuck. I’m just trying to put you back together.” He takes our joint hands and puts them at my side. “Besides, I’ve got a boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend and a husband? You’re a busy lady.” He chuckles.

“Baggage up to my ears.” I agree. 

“You’re something, you know that sweetness? Guys usually give you a pass on that cuz you’ve got a big ass?” He lifts an eyebrow. I choke a little, but cover it with a cough.

“No, they usually give me a pass cuz I do anal.” I respond, and Reno can’t hide the way he spits, he’s gotta pound on his chest to breathe right again.

“Shiva’s tits.” He shakes his head. “Fine, fine. I’ve got two more of these I gotta find down here. You help me get them, I’ll get you the prosthetic arm of your dreams. But fair warning, the guy that’s gonna hook you up is a fucking lunatic.”

“Mad scientist type?” I lift an eyebrow.

“How’d you guess?” He asks, dryly. I laugh, shaking my head

“It’s just my luck.” I reply. Well, at least his mad scientist isn’t Even, that’s got to count for something, right?

\--

I sit outside thick, steel doors, marveling over the shiny new hand attached to my arm. Shiny isn’t an exaggeration. In the gunmetal colored metal, I see my own reflection, hear the gears moving as I curl fingers into my palm and back out again. 

My phone goes off. My heart leaps into my chest, breath shoots up but anxiety is a noose around my neck, trapping it tight, treating my pulse as a punching bag.

Isa: That’s a very intriguing take. Very different from what Master Yen Sid had to say, though I can’t say I’m shocked. Your lack of rational thinking makes it very easy to paint you as some sort of deranged animal.

‘You would know, cuz you’ve painted that picture of me.’

Isa: Precisely.

Lea isn’t going to text me back. I should stop looking at my phone every fifteen seconds, with hope that lifts me up and dread that buries me six feet under in tandem. I’ve sent him dozens of texts and each is met with silence, reminding me of the last ‘doesn’t change anything’.

But the problem is, the problem with us, is neither is going to fully let go until the other forces them. Even now, I feel it inside of me, a soul stretched thin but clinging desperately to its other half, like the mere separation would be fatal.

‘What do the others say?’

Isa’s been texting me consistently, Isa’s been listening to my story, listening to the reason I would have killed Yen Sid there in the Mysterious Tower. I look down at my new, metallic hand and think never again. There’s been enough laying myself down like a sacrificial lamb. I don’t have anything left to part with. So I’m never giving an inch again. Not for Lea, not for Kairi, not for a soul. I’m done being met in the middle, I’m getting met exactly where I stand. And if, as I predict, the others are convinced that I’m the monster lurking beneath their beds, then I’ll be sure they scream as I tear down the foundation of the broken world, brick by brick.

Isa: That you’ve lost it, that there’s no hope for you, that they need to come to terms with the fact that when we storm Daybreak Town you will be treated as an enemy.

‘It’s not like that feels good to me, either.’

Isa: Believe me, I know.

He does, better than anyone else. That’s probably why he’s still talking to me now.

‘I’m not going to ask you to kill me when this is all over, I’m trying my ass off to create a world that I want to LIVE in.’

Isa: Will you still want to live in such a world if Lea doesn’t come back to you?

I chew my lips. The immediate, reflexive answer is to tell Isa to fuck off and that once the realm is bathed in light, Lea will forgive me. But his last words to me taunt me: ‘doesn’t change anything’. I’ve given Lea so many ultimatums, it’s foolish to believe that he would never give me one. I just didn’t realize this one would be so hard.

‘Do you think I’ve really blown that?’

Isa: It’s hard to tell with him. He’s been quiet lately.

Isa: If you repeat this to anyone there will be hell to pay, but I do hope he forgives you. He was never happier than when he was with you.

And probably never more miserable either.

Isa: Though I cannot I say I fault him if your choice in partner is holding him back.

‘I already told him in front of everyone, I’d leave Luxu for him. And not that you give a fuck, but the arrangement I have with him will be done when the realm is restored.’

Isa: The fact that he’s personally caused harm to some of us isn’t helpful, still.

My mouth twists.

‘It was shitty, him keeping Skuld alive but just by barely. He can fuck himself.’

Isa: The scars on her chest aren’t exactly non traumatizing either.

So no one’s told him, even in my absence. I chew my lip. Fuck it.

‘Well I hate to break this to you, everything else was Luxu, but I’m almost certain that the scars on her chest were Ansem’s doing. Doesn’t she talk to you about them?’

Isa: It’s the one thing she can’t speak about without falling apart...how almost certain are you?

‘Well I have a running theory that while he was attempting to unlock the memories in her heart or whatever bullshit, he played around with using electroshock on her heart. That’s just based on the injuries and his motive.’

Isa: Interesting…

I look toward the steel door behind me and press my lips into a line. The overall process of attaching the prosthetic to the nub on my arm was quick. Excruciating, but quick. Something about the fusion of my nerves to the metal so that the prosthetic would act organically. An interesting subject, but not something I wanted to ask too many questions about because to say that Hojo, the ‘mad scientist type’ Reno told me about, is worse than Even would be a colossal understatement. Still, despite his obvious sadistic tendencies and a comment about expecting me to pass out from the fusion process, he took into account exactly what I needed the hand to be able to do and measured me precisely. It’s surreal how perfect the size matches my flesh hand. And the hole I jabbed into the wall behind me to test my strength is proof enough what I’ll be capable of. 

After the fusion itself, Reno ushered me out of the skeevy looking lab and demanded I stay put outside of some sort of fancy office. Newly satisfied with my prosthetic arm, I complied but damn, if he isn’t taking his sweet time. 

My phone lights up again, I’m about to harass Isa for double texting me, when another name lights up on my screen.

Lea: I know you’ve got a lot you want to say right now, but the fact of the matter is that I can’t give you what you need. I can’t hear you out, I can’t see past this. Haven’t we hurt each other enough? Can’t you just come back?

Holy shit, holy fucking shit he’s texting me back I… He’s texting me back and he doesn’t even give a fuck that I accused Master Yen Sid of raising Kairi like a lamb for the slaughter. He’s referring to my pleading with him to listen as me having ‘a lot’ I want to say. He can’t hear me out, he can’t see past this. My vision starts to swim, logical responses fly out the window.

‘Did you even read my fucking message or are you just disregarding me again cuz I’m telling you things you don’t want to hear?’

Lea: I can’t do this with you anymore. Do you want to win or do you want to make this work?

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is it. This is the part where he pries my fingers off of him, one by one. This is the part where he forces me to let go.

‘This isn’t about winning or losing. This is about me making the world a better place for us.’

Please don’t do this, I want to tell him. Not now, please not now.

Lea: I’m not doing this with you right now. Are you coming to Radiant Garden or not?

My hands shake, I grip the phone so tight that the glass starts to crack in my prosthetic hand, so I force myself to respond quickly.

‘I’m kind of fucking busy getting myself an ARM. Since you know, I lost it trying to kill the murderous old wizard that you all put on a pedestal.’

I know the attitude isn’t helping, I know I’m my own worst enemy because I can’t stop myself from retaliating against my own damn husband, but the chaotic push and pull inside my soul demands comeuppance, and even I yield. 

Lea: Then you should probably stop texting me. We’re enemies. I’ll see you on the battlefield

This time, the phone shatters in my hand, shards of glass and metal spill onto my lap, my face burns, my eyes sting.

The office door swings open and Reno takes one look at me, thin eyebrow lifted. I’d rather die than see his face. 

“Huh. Hojo was pretty confident you’d pass out in the first half hour. Thought I’d come out and see you dead to the world.” Reno shrugs.

“Yeah, well, tell Hojo I lost an arm, he’s gonna have to try harder if he wants to hurt me.” I push myself up from the ground, letting the scraps that were once my phone fall to the ground.

“The fuck’s that?” Reno gestures to the ground.

“My phone.” I reply.

“Yikes.” He says.

“I should get going. But thank you.” I murmur. “For everything.”

“Why are you lookin’ at me like you’re about to head off to your damn death?” Reno cocks his head to the side. I bite my lip. “I ain’t stupid, sweetness. I know what this looks like.” I begin to wonder what Reno does for a living.

“Because I’m in the endgame of something really nasty right now.” I reply.

“Well, is it worth an arm and a leg?” Reno teases and I groan.

“If I come back to you in need of a leg, please just take me out into a field and shoot me in the head.” I plead, Reno just chuckles, ruffling the hair on top of my head, which I’m starting to wish I brushed a little better.

“When’s this nasty thing you’re in the middle of gonna be over then?” He asks.

“Soon, probably.” I know the timer is ticking down from when the Master and I spoke in the ark, but I’ve been purposefully ignoring it because I know I cannot handle the hope or the anxiety of this final battle.

“Well, when it’s done, you want a job?” He asks, so carelessly, like he’s inquiring about the weather.

“Excuse me?” I raise my eyebrows.

“You look like you got a whole lotta nothing to lose. I know that face. You’ve got that whole ‘why the fuck not’ thing going on and that’s probably what got you into the something nasty. You can do cool shit with magic, that’s an asset, sweetness.” He informs me. “I can’t give the job away, I ain’t that high level, but my boss in there likes what I’ve told him about you. I doubt you’ll have any issues meeting the physical demands.”

“I don’t even know what you do other than complain about fighting monsters.” I remind him, and he laughs like this is all a silly technicality. 

“Well the big boss, the guy you stole from, needs someone to get the dirty stuff done, the stuff the pencil pushers don’t wanna get themselves messy with.” He explains.

“What would a corporation need hired thugs for?” I ask, and when he slaps a hand to his chest, like I’ve wounded him, I smirk. “Don’t get it twisted, I love a bad guy in uniform.” I was a bad guy in uniform.

“Well sweetness, in case you missed it, this corporation has a whole lotta different departments that don’t run smoothly unless there’s someone to back the pencil pushers.” He reminds me, leaning in. There’s a part of me that wants to cast care to the wind, that just lost Lea, that wants to shake Luxu like a bad disease, that wants to meet him halfway and kiss him because I know it will lead to more than kissing and like hell if I don’t want soulmates or heart halves wiped from my mind. I want to kiss Reno like I need a sense of autonomy in my own destiny.

I wanna kiss Reno cuz he’s the closest I think I’m ever going to get to kissing Lea again and if I think too hard on that, I’m going to fall apart.

But I don’t.

“How much would I have to back a pencil pusher?” Is there anything left for me to lose? Am I really contemplating a lifetime more of getting my hands dirty for someone else’s cause? Isn’t that what broke me down in the first place? How much of me is only contemplating this because I’m trying desperately to run away from things in my life that feel broken?

“When the big man says jump, we ask how high.” Reno admits. I bite my lips. Haven’t I been doing that for the Master and Xemnas before him for too long?

“That sounds pretty all consuming.” I say.

“Yeah, you sure couldn’t go back to a nice cushy home with a husband and family. Not with this damn job.” Reno admits, and I almost open my mouth to tell him I don’t have a husband anymore, that I don’t have a best friend anymore, that I don’t have anything. But I see Elrena and Ludor and Emyd and Lauriam and even Vanitas in my mind’s eye and keep my mouth shut, if only so that I can take my time to decide what the hell to do.

“Well how do you deal with it all then?” I ask.

“By trying to fuck pretty girls at bars, who steal shit from my boss.” He teases and when I only smile in response, he shrugs. “I’m fine at compartmentalizing. Shove the shit into a box, seal it up and kick that box until it goes away.”

“What happens when you run out of room in that box?” I ask. He looks at me, pain tainting his turquoise eyes. “Asking for a friend.” 

“Tell your friend I haven’t gotten that far yet.” He tells me, so I chew my lip and look down at my hand. “I hear normal people drink or go to therapy.”

And I let Vanitas beat the hell out of me. I crack a smile and look down at my hand. 

“Yeah. Guess I’ll have to figure that out then, since I’m not normal people.” There’s a little more life in my eyes, of that I’m certain when I look up at him. The only reason I know this is because for just a second, Reno gives me the type of look that breaks my heart. Soft eyes, soft smiles, he looks so much like Lea and I’m so alone that once more I almost crumble.

“You ever been in a helicopter before?” He asks. I blink.

“A whoda whatter?” I ask, he snorts on his laugh.

“Oh damn, you’re gonna love it, you’ll be back beggin’ for that job in no time.”

\--

Vanitas puts me into the ground so hard that dirt kicks up from behind me, but he bears the bruises that my new arm is capable of. I’m in the ground, in the grass with his boot on my abdomen. He presses just a little and it’s a squeeze of reassurance. Especially when I take this shiny new hand of mine, wrap it around his ankle and yank him off of me with force that almost tears my arm straight out of its socket. Almost. But the metal handles force my human body can’t and even Vanitas crashes down beside me, thanks to my efforts. Because of my strength.

My eyes haven’t stopped shining since Reno and I flew around the city--and he’s right, I’m already hungry for more, especially because I’m certain with a few more sessions, I could pilot the helicopter better than him.

Vanitas’ weight feels warm beside me. We stare up at the sky, gasping and grinning and I think that maybe I don’t feel alone like this.

“You’ve totally lost it.” He huffs. I beam.

“Totally.” I agree. “You know what’s so fucked up, is I used to think if I could just lay around some cozy home with someone I would be happier than when someone is beating the hell out of me. Well I’ve been laying around with Luxu for months now, but this feels a hell of a lot better.”

“Gross.” Vanitas makes a face, but I laugh so hard his expression goes soft. “You think that’s normal? To always want to be at war?” I know better than to think he’s asking on my behalf.

“Probably not.” I reply. “But I think it makes a difference to choose my battles rather than being thrown into them.” Still, even as I voice this I'm contemplating what it might be like to work with Reno, to keep fighting for someone else.

“Yeah…” Vanitas carves his lips into his teeth as he ruminates on the one word. And maybe it’s all the same thing for him. I’m not being commanded by Xemnas anymore than he is being commanded by Xehanort, anymore. Neither of us are chasing Ventus or Lea and the promise they bring to complete us. We’re not daydreaming of injecting everything that Ventus or Kairi’s bright shiny hearts into us--though I know we’re both aching for another hit of light. All of those thing get lost when there are blood and fists and were the ones calling the shots. “You wanna go again?”

“Oh, always.”

\--

“Want company?” Luxu sticks his head into the shower, where I’m seated, watching blood and shampoo swirl down the drain. Before I have the chance to tell him that I want to be alone, I hear the sound of him undressing, which thankfully means the shower door shuts and I have two seconds worth of rustling fabric to contort my face before he climb in, sitting on the ground behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle. “Are you seriously bleeding?”

“I wanted to test and see how my new hand worked.” I tell him. 

“And, the consensus?” He asks, I crack a smile and lean my weight into him, trying to ignore the way my body tenses. Because what does the weight of our relationship even matter? Who do I even have to worry about losing anymore? His body feels fantastic against mine still, there was a part of me that really liked Luxu once. 

It has been days since he’s touched me, days since we’ve shared a bed, days since I’ve felt human in the slightest. I arch my back and shift the hand made of metal back toward his cock, drawing a line up the underside of his shaft until he shivers into me.

“I dunno, you tell me.” I grin.

“You crush me, and neither of us are gonna be happy, squirt.” But he sounds a little bit breathless already. With feather light movements, I curl my hand around the base of his cock and swipe a metal thumb across his head, sighing when he hisses. 

“Who’s happy now?” I ask, in a low voice, pumping up and down, listening to the anonymous grunts and hisses from behind me. Against this prosthetic, I don’t feel the hot throbbing of his cock, I don’t feel him twitch as I bring him, knowingly to the edge, I don’t even feel him finally come over the edge, spilling his load onto my hand. I make a face. Apparently I’m not the only one that hated waiting a few days to get touched. To go back to pretending that this is what heaven feels like and that this is what we both want. I twist around in the tub, climbing into his lap, pressing my hands down on the wall behind him as I push my body into his. “You gonna keep me waiting?” I tease.

“Like I waited four damn days for you to drag your ass outta bed and get a new hand?” He asks, grabbing me up by the ribs. My face breaks, just a little.

“I lost an arm.” I remind him.

“Yeah, cuz you went on some sort of wild tirade over some girl you’re not even friends with anymore.” He counters, my face breaks more than just a little, my skin is red hot. Some girl I’m not even friends with anymore isn’t wrong, but goddamn, even when the Master’s begging him, he can’t muster up a little bit of sympathy.

I don’t even want to fuck him anymore.

“Hey, the water’s getting kind of cold, you wanna get out of here?” I ask, like that’ll stop him from trying to trap me against the wall.

“As if, what are you used to bathing in? Lava?” He chuckles, even as I push myself off of him. 

“Guess I just like it hot.” I press my lips. Our eyes meet, and I know I’ve thoroughly slaughter any desire he might have had left.

“Yeah, well, you’ll probably rust if we stay in here much longer.” He replies, standing up when I reach around to turn off the water.

“No, it’s special metal from Midgar. Lightweight, crafted specifically for my body, stronger than my human limbs.” I brag. He gives me a very stealy look.

“You always do come back from Midgar in a special type of mood.” He accuses. I clench my jaw so hard, it feels like it’s going to pop. I towel off without another word and head into the room, tugging on sweats and a T-shirt before Luxu even comes back into the room, towel wrapped around his waist. He sighs, standing in the door frame between the bathroom and bedroom door, looking like his patience has been run far too thin. “Look, sorry, we were having fun, don’t you want to go back to having fun? I mean, the day after tomorrow, your friends are storming this place.” 

“The day after tomorrow?” I gasp as suddenly the weight of it all traps me in, binds me entirely.

“Yeah so what do you say you take a little breather and we take a load off... Bring a little light into things…” He trails off. I go perfectly rigid, rolling my shoulders back. There’s very little hesitation before I throw my shirt over my head and spring at him, legs wrapped around his waist.

He throws me right back onto the bed, every stubborn ounce of me wants to shift away the second I feel his weight on my hips. But then he cups my breasts and pulses light beneath my skin and I’m seeing stardust and heaven and the sky from beside Vanitas and the city of Midgar from up in the clouds. I’m back in Twilight Town, in bed beside someone who doesn't love me now and never will again but before the hurt can settle in, the light shoves it out. In my head I’m getting married on the beach, I’m making love inside a cave. Luxu pumps into me so hard I get lost in the fantasy. I cram my flesh fist into my mouth and bite down so that I don’t scream the name I want to.

We come down, Luxu drops down beside me in our bed and twists one leg into mine.

“This will all be so much better when the war is done.” He sighs when finally the silence trickles out. 

I agree, but probably not the way he wants me to.


	54. Chapter 54

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember back on chapter 11 of 'Tempest' where I teased a character I said I wanted to feel like a secret boss? This chapter is where you get your pay off

LIII.

Luxu wakes me up with lips at my ear and arms around my waist.

“In forty eight more hours, you won’t even need a shot of light anymore.” He breathes. The physical reaction is pure chills. My logical response is thank fuck. In forty eight more hours, the realm will be bursting with so much natural light, I can get as far away from him as humanly possible.

In all honesty, I have no idea where I’m supposed to go, what I’m supposed to stumble toward when I can’t even call my husband in desperation one last time. But the fact of the matter is, Luxu’s words have huge meaning. In forty eight hours, we’ll have sealed the realm entirely in light, we’ll have destroyed every last trace of darkness left. In forty eight hours, everything I’ve worked like hell to accomplish will mean something. And I will finally, truly be free from any obligation this realm calls me to.

For a second, I think I hate that idea, but I decide rather quickly there’s a huge difference between choosing to take action and being forced to. Luxu kisses my shoulder, I grit my teeth.

Forty eight hours.

“And until then, we can get you all nice and relaxed.” His hands grip my shoulders, the pulse of light that floods me like an electric shock is almost enough to completely alter my train of thought. I shift in the bed, making a move for his body and then stop myself, setting my hand on his leg.

“If I don’t have a mission, Ludor and I actually planned a trip to Shinjuku.” I say quickly. We didn’t. I mean, we kind of did in passing, and I don’t loathe the thought of fucking Luxu into tomorrow. But if I were to pick what I wanted to do on the last day before the first day of the rest of my life, gratituous sex with someone I start to hate every time they open their mouth doesn’t make the cut.

“Ludor?” He asks, speculatively, ceasing his musing on my shoulder. 

“And Emyd.” Because whatever, maybe Elrena isn’t the only one who incorrectly believes Ludor has some sort of infatuation with me.

“Why would you want to go to Shinjuku?” He asks. “It’s an industrial heap.”

“Well, I like Shibuya.” And I could stand to try to quell my fucking argumentative urges for the next forty eight hours if it means I can still get light. “And Ludor used to be the Composer in Shinjuku, so it stands to reason I wouldn’t hate a friend showing me around a town that resembles one I have fun in.”

“I’d really rather you not.” He says flatly, my face burns. I’d really rather not waste my time sharing a bed with this raging asshole, but here we are. It takes everything in me to not tear away right then and there. 

“Um, okay, let’s elaborate.” I grip the sheets like a vice and don’t realize I’m tearing them in my metal hand until the telltale sound of them shredding fills the air. Great, fuck, cool. Good job, Rueki. 

“Oh calm down, squirt. It’s a shit hole and if you think the Noise are nasty in Shibuya, Shinjuku is still coming back from Inversion. They’re having a really hard time keeping the problems from the UG out of the RG. You’re forgetting I was there when you were bringing the Master back from Shibuya.” Luxu reminds me and I start to feel minorly like an idiot. My mouth twists.

“Sorry.” I say softly, roughly.

“As if. Doesn’t count unless you say it like you mean it.” He says, tone losing some of its bite to take on a more playful note.

“I do mean it, you’re just so fucking smug man, I can’t eat too big of a shit sandwhich.” Silence settles for just a moment before we both burst out laughing, me rolling away from him and onto my back. He props himself up, eye crinkled in mirth and for just a second, he’s the delicious, seductive, charismatic man I remember him being. His hand brushes my cheek, I catch it in my metal one and he grins at me.

“Think you’d be able to hold a candle to me now that you’ve got this thing?” He teases.

“I kicked your ass in the Keyblade Graveyard.” I remind him.

“Mmm, the way I remember it I let you think you won. And you bawled your little eyes out.” He winks. I snort.

“What about ‘oh Rueki, you’ve gotta be the one to kill me, cuz I’m desperately thirsty for you’?” I ask, doing the same dumb voice I do to mock anyone. Once again, he doesn’t laugh the way I want him to and my heart stings a little. 

“Aren’t you not supposed to quit your day job?” He asks. I flash him my middle finger.

“Well what about the time I ground electricity into you in the World That Never Was?” I ask. He howls out a laugh.

“You were so fucking smug about that.” He chuckles. 

“It was a cool trick.” I insist. 

“That almost killed you.” He grins and abruptly, my throat feels tight. Why is it that all of my cool tricks nearly break me in two?

“Luxu…” I pause on his name. “What if one of us dies.”

My words sit heavy, a dense fog in the air around us. I don’t expect him to have an answer. I had this conversation the morning before the last war with the man who is actually my soulmate, and his response was unsatisfactory. This is just a superhuman that has a piece of my heart and doesn’t even know how to use it. A lot of people have an access point into my heart, that doesn’t mean any of them take on lasting qualities. At best, Luxu is a passing fling that seized me tight, was hot as sin and burned out faster than a falling star.

He shifts in bed and comes to lay down beside me. I expect him to leave, or maybe to grumble something about me ruining the moment. But instead, he folds his hands in his toned abdomen and stays perfectly still beside me. 

“Not happening, squirt.” He mutters. “If the Master even thought for a second that was a realistic possibility, he’d pull us. He doesn’t want any of us to die.” But that doesn’t mean that someone might not.

“I just...every time something big happens, I think I’m doing something grand and noble. But Saix killed me before I could take him out for Roxas and that demon tide swept us away in the Keyblade Graveyard and I--” I’ve died a million deaths since then. My hands shake, I bring one up so that I can bite my knuckles and feel something other than crippling nausea. “What if we do this and none of it makes a fucking difference?” 

“You should maybe climb off your high horse.” He replies, I stiffen. “You try so hard to be a cynic despite all of this. You owe it to yourself and to me to have a little bit of faith that we’re in the middle of something magical. The outcome isn't going to be anything ordinary.” He insists. “As long as one of my siblings or the Master lives, we all do. All we need is Kingdom Hearts to be summoned to bring each other back and we already know how to make that happen. You don’t need to worry about me, squirt. Keep yourself alive and you’re doing all you need to.”

Momentarily, I think that I didn’t give the two of us a proper shot. If all of what we’d been through didn’t swirl so thoroughly around Lea--around whether or not he left me for Skuld, around hating him, around loving him--could we have been properly in love? Everything Luxu ever says sounds like ‘I know something you don’t know’, but didn’t I like that about him in the beginning?

Maybe. But any semblance of love I ever thought I felt for him has always been a lie, has been conditional. I don’t want to be with Luxu forever, I don’t even really want anything more from him than the light he freely dispenses, and when I’m the only thing he’s ever wanted, I do feel abysmal about that. I don’t owe him my heart, I don’t owe him my love, but that doesn’t mean I’m not trying to justify a way to give it to him or else risk mind gnawing self loathing. I can’t give him the one thing he wants, it shouldn’t feel like my fault but I feel the world has grown far more complicated than the black and white standard I wanted to live by when this all began. I’ve grown more complicated.

“I don’t know how to take an easy win.” I murmur.

“Has any of this been easy?” He asks. I shake my head. “The time we’ve suffered is your equivalent exchange, little Rueki.”

I don’t want him. But I kind of wish I did.

“Are you gonna make it tomorrow, against everyone?” He asks. I nod, sucking in a breath as I remember myself. The Master told him to act unconditionally supportive to me, even when the nicest thing Luxu could think to call me was the same thing Skuld said that broke me. 

“Yeah. I don’t have any false illusions that I’m going home with any of them after tomorrow.” But I still don’t want to die, I still want to set up home, I still want to make it to a world where I’m not the figment in my own nightmares. Just because they’ve all lost love for me doesn’t mean my purpose is worthless. Finally, I feel that. I feel resolve and absolution deep into my bones, feel the compulsion and know that everything I’ve done is everything I’m made to do. 

The biggest problem, I realize, is when this is done, what in the world convinces me that I still have a purpose?

I’m not scared of tomorrow when it's the devil I know, I’m scared for what follows.

There’s a knock on our door. I raise an eyebrow.

“You expecting someone?” He asks me, which answers that question. I shake my head, but in comes Emyd, one hand over his eyes, the other feeling out in front of him.

“I’m looking for Rueki, is everyone decent?” He shouts, like him somehow not being able to see makes the rest of us deaf. I raise an eyebrow, Luxu snorts.

“Yes.” I groan and Emyd heaves a sigh, removing his hands from his eyes like it’s the largest inconvenience he’s ever faced.

“Cool, hey, Ludor was looking for you but uh...he didn’t want to come here.” Emyd chuckles.

“And you got saddled with it, Nocturne?” Luxu teases.

“I might owe him a favor.” Emyd confesses.

“How are you already in debt with Ludor, you guys haven’t even been properly human long enough.” I grin.

“I mean… I might not have completed _all_ of the missions Aced told me to on my own. But dude, your weird bear brother is insane.” Emyd says. “Um, again, no offense.” Like that little tagline exemplifies him. 

“None taken.” Luxu smirks. His eye flicks to me, I chew on my lip, still heavy with some of the nostalgia that I used to really adore this man I’m now trying to run from. “Well, have fun, squirt. Save some energy for me, and uh...maybe stay the hell out of Shinjuku.” It’s not a suggestion, it’s a demand, but I know better than to think I’m going to let him tell me what to do outside of our bed.

I place a kiss on his temple, leap out of bed and head out the door with Emyd, my bare feet padding against the castle floors.

“Um...Ludor didn’t mention anything about Shinjuku or anything like that. He was just wondering if you wanted to hang out together. I think he was thinking more like you two play chess and I play music like old times.” Emyd admits. I shoot him a grin.

“To be honest, you just have good timing. I already told Luxu that I was gonna hang out with you guys today, just so I wouldn’t be cooped up with him.” I admit. 

“I’m not even gonna ask.” Emyd wrinkles his nose. Which is fair, there’s nothing to tell. “Are you really trying to go to other worlds dressed like that?” He asks, staring down at the nightgown I wear. I snort.

“Dude, I have other clothes in my room. Give me a minute to shower and get dressed, you go find Ludor and tell him the three of us are going to Shibuya. No exceptions.”

\--

We touch down in Shibuya and immediately my senses are filled in the extreme. I love the way it all overwhelms me and if it weren’t for the latent magic of the UG, which I’m likely to but don’t want to get involved in, there’d be no doubt in my mind that after tomorrow, I’d set up life here.

“This place is amazing.” Emyd breathes. “I’ve never been anywhere like this. You can actually hear the heartbeat in the sound waves.”

“Yeah, it’s an artsy place.” I agree.

“Creative where Shinjuku is pragmatic.” Ludor nods as he looks around the hustle and bustle and blazing street signs that make up the Scramble Crossing.

“No.” Emyd shakes his head as we take off, me leading the way, them following through throngs as my instincts take me straight to Cat Street. The air gets a whole lot easier to breathe, the crowds thin out the closer we get and Emyd sighs, humming as he closes his eyes. “Come on, you feel it, right? This place is just teaming with inspiration.”

“Imagination.” Ludor smirks.

“Capital ‘I’, right?” I ask and he chuckles.

“So you have been paying attention.” He observes. Emyd opens his eyes back up and looks around.

“It’s like every creative thought anyone has ever had is just swirling around here.” Emyd looks at what I only see as thin air.

“That would be exactly it.” Ludor nods. “When someone dies in Shibuya, their soul is turned into pure creative energy. Some say it pools at the top of Pork City, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“We should go there!” Emyd suggests. “Can you imagine the music I could write up there?” He’s got the eyes of a dreamer, with his glazed over smile, but unsurprisingly, Ludor puts an end to that.

“I would suggest you avoid Pork City altogether. Unsavory types tend to lurk there. Specifically mathematicians.” Ludor warns. I make a face.

“Why is he still around, he sucked.” I gripe. Ludor bursts out laughing.

“You’re not the only one who isn’t fond of Sho Minamimoto, but do remember that the most ingenious types are typically eccentric.” He pats my head like I’m some sort of child, so with all the petulance of one, I stomp forward, finding the expectant doors of Wildkat, which I push straight through.

“Honey, I’m home.” I announce to the cafe, which is empty, save for Hanekoma and Joshua, the former leaning across the bar, the other sulking into a cup of coffee.

“Find someone else to bother.” Joshua mutters.

“An interesting greeting, Yoshiya.” Ludor pops in right behind me. Emyd sticks his head in and makes a face, waiting for some kind of prompt, but quickly changes his tune as he looks from one campy sign to another.

“What a cool place.” Emyd approves. Joshua shifts, violent eyes unusually wide. Hanekoma adjusts his indoor sunglasses, blinking wildly.

“Well I’ll be damned.” A grin pulls up on Hanekoma’s face. “You brought company, blondie.”

“I mean, I don’t name drop for nothing.” I smirk. Ludor chuckles and Hanekoma comes from outside of the bar for possibly the first time, in all the times I’ve been here. He completely sidesteps Joshua, who is still gawking, and he and Ludor meet in a warm embrace.

“Told you that you wouldn’t stay gone for long.” Hanekoma grins, wickedly as they part.

“And you are typically right, old friend.” Ludor replies.

“You know these people?” Emyd asks. 

“Ludor used to be in charge of a neighboring town. Hanekoma here is a guardian type of this town. And the owner of this cafe.” I explain to Emyd. “And Emyd, Ludor and I have been friends since before my first trip here.” I explain to the others.

“In charge as in politically?” Emyd asks.

“A bit different.” Ludor confesses, cheekily.

“More like a god.” Joshua is straight up staring at Ludor. He actually gets up and bows, face bright red. “My apologies, if I knew you were coming along, certainly I’d have presented myself as more accomodating.” 

“You were a god?” Emyd asks with maybe a bit too much acceptance. “Cool.” He decides and then heads up to the counter as Ludor attempts to rebuff Joshua’s strange, intense formalities. 

“Well what can I do ya for, blondie?” Hanekoma asks, leaping back over the bar as Emyd and I take seats. “Neku and the other’s gonna be joining you?”

“I mean, maybe. I don’t have a phone to get a hold of them anymore.” I shrug. “We’re about to change the world tomorrow.”

“So you needed the best cuppa around, today?” Hanekoma looks at me with his indoor sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.

“I mean, we both know I’m only here for the pumpkin soup.” I grin.

“Coming right up.” Hanekoma replies then looks to Emyd. “You need a few, man?”

“Nah, just get me whatever. I’m not picky.” Emyd replies, still staring around the shop like I have straight up walked him to heaven’s gates.

“I like this one, blondie.” Hanekoma tells me. I’m unsurprised. Ludor comes and sits down on the side of me that Emyd isn’t occupying with Joshua opposite him. “The usual for you, Ludor?”

“I’m hardly shocked that you still remember my usual.” Ludor chuckles.

“So then, what brings you to my neck of the woods?” Joshua asks, Ludor, not me, most definitely not me. It’s almost as though Emyd and I don’t even exist, thanks to the sheer amount of hero worship going on.

“You know, I’m not entirely certain.” Ludor admits before stealing a glance at me. “I recall us mentioning in passing that we should venture out here together, but what inspired you to set the date, Rueki, love?” 

Joshua’s mouth fixes into a pout. Clearly he’s none too pleased that his idol is friendly with me.

“She’s avoiding Xigbar.” Emyd announces as Hanekoma passes him something foamy in a tall glass. Emyd’s eyes light up like a child opening gifts. “I love this place.”

“Do I dare even inquire?” Ludor raises his eyebrows. I snicker a little.

“Honestly, it’s not as dramatic as anything back when we were Nobodies was. I’m just over Luxu. I don’t think he actually like me, I think the Master told him a thousand times when he was a kid that he’s supposed to like me and he’s trying to make himself believe it. I think he thinks I’m a whiny brat and I think he’s selfish and uncaring.” I shrug. “By time the realm is put the hell back together, I’m done with him.”

“Still on with the whole fixing the realm thing?” Hanekoma slides me my pumpkin soup and while he does not go to the extent of air quotes, I can hear the displeasure in his voice.

“It’s rather different than what you’d expect, Sanae.” Ludor insists. “I’m backing it. Though you were always far more of a pacifist than I.” 

“And you were always more of an extremist. But I know she has no idea how to communicate worth a damn.” Hanekoma waves a hand. “Sorry blondie.”

“Don’t be, I know it’s true.” I take a bite of my soup as Ludor receives something in a mug.

“So why are you still putting up with Xigbar then if you can’t stand him?” Emyd asks.

“Just cuz he doesn’t serve emotional purposes doesn’t mean he’s not good for other things.” I reply. Ludor clears his throat.

“Moving on…” He says and I burst out laughing.

“No, it’s not like that.” I mean it is, it definitely is, but “I keep him around cuz when I’m having a shit day the only thing that fixes me anymore is light magic. He shoots me up with a little bit of that and suddenly nothing in the world bothers me.” I wave a hand as I take another bite of soup, but quickly realize that statement went over maybe worse than detailing my sex life would have. Joshua and Hanekoma looking at me like there’s something severely wrong with me isn’t abnormal. It’s that look being passed down to everyone, Emyd included that stirs me.

“Light magic. You got yourself hooked on light magic. Your level of stupidity truly would be impressive if it wasn’t frightening.” Joshua shakes his head.

“For the sake of the damn cafe, I’m gonna suggest we take this outside so I don’t ruin the decor when I curb stomp your ass.” I counter.

“Um… he’s kind of right, Rueki.” Emyd wrinkles his nose. “Light magic destroys your heart.” He says.

“And you know this because…” I trail off and Emyd fixes his mouth into a pout.

“I do know how to read.” He assures me.

“And whatever he’s reading ain’t lying to you, blondie.” Hanekoma warns me. “Light magic is dangerous. Shouldn’t be shot up into anyone unless it’s a last resort.”

“Have you met me? I’m kind of the walking embodiment of a last resort.” I say, unbothered as I take another drink of my soup. Because to be honest, there is no amount of lecturing that’s going to convince me that every second I’ve spent walking on air wasn’t worth it. Not when it’s the only thing that would have kept me from spilling over the edge or bursting like a dam when I thought Lea left me for Skuld. Or when he told me he didn’t want me. Or when everything out of Kairi’s mouth felt like a taunt, when I lost my arm for her and she never even texted me back when I warned her away from Yen Sid. No, not only was this the right way, it was the only way for me.

“Love...it breaks down your heart’s barrier. The only way you’ll be able to build that up is by placing yourself in a very placid, stable environment and even that could take years.” Ludor informs me, but I’m smart enough to read between the lines.

“And everyone thinks I can’t surround myself with stability so I’m bound to go running back to Luxu.” I predict.

“I don’t particularly care what you do with your life.” Joshua presses his lips into a thin line.

“I do, but your dating life and your personal choices are hardly something I’m going to lecture you on.” Ludor promises me.

“Then why does no one trust that I’m going to be able to survive when this is all done?” I ask. Ludor’s face falls, he sets a hand on top of mine and moves it away from the spoon I’m holding now more as a prop than anything.

“Rueki…” Ludor takes a breath, looks at our peers and just heaves a sigh. “If I may speak candidly, there was a time I truly believed I was in love with you.”

“I knew it.” Emyd whispers and we both shoot him scathing looks as he sips on his frothy drink.

“You don’t particularly look phased.” Ludor tells me, I chew my lip and flick my eyes down to the counter. I don’t want to tell my friend that I can’t reciprocate because he doesn’t break me just so.

“You’re not the first person to tell me.” I admit. “Elrena suggested it on our first mission together. Luxu doesn’t seem to trust me being around just you.”

“It’s ironic to me now that Xigbar used you as a bargaining piece to lure me into this war.” Ludor says and he’s not wrong. Someone who had plans from the very beginning to take me as his own, dangles me over someone else’s head like the worst kept promise. 

“I’m sorry.” I murmur.

“There’s no need to be.” Ludor assures me, squeezing my hand. “If you’ll take that confession, then I have another to offer you. I don’t actually think I loved you in the first place. I think I, much like your lover, convinced myself I did by repeating my affections like a mantra in my own head.”

“I get it, I’ve got a nice ass, but my redeeming qualities stop there.” I roll my eyes and jerk my hand away, making a move for my soup, but Ludor chuckles.

“Hardly. My draw to you was how remarkably you looked like her. Like Strelitzia.” He confesses and my face flushes.

“Wait, didn’t Lauriam say she had a crush on you?” Emyd asks and once again, we’re both reminded that we’re not the only two in the room. Fortunately, Hanekoma and Joshua have the good sense to busy themselves in conversation and leave us be.

“Unbeknownst to me.” Ludor nods. “I only knew that I was infatuated with her. Her compassion, her magical prowess, her unfiltered justice. And while you are certainly far less tactful, everything I adored about her, you exuded. I ignored everything I could have perceived as undesirable about you, I imagined I could wipe those qualities away and you could be exactly the way I dreamed you.”

“Dude, seriously, you don’t need to tell me how unappealing I am to be around.” I look at him incredulously, but again, Ludor sighs.

“Love, please, you’d do well to listen.” He promises but I just think he’d do well to go fuck himself. “What I did to you then, you have admitted that Xigbar is doing now, and that is what worries me. Because it wasn’t until I cast aside the hyper romantic notion that you could be exactly what I fantasized you were, that I discovered who you truly were. Above and beyond, while I am not romantically in love with you, I am delighted by who you are, amazed with what you are capable of when I’m not ignoring the parts of you that are less savory. I think you’ve had love like this. Whatever path you follow is your own, but it would devastate me to watch one of my dearest friends sacrifice true acceptance for momentary elation.”

I open my mouth, lips parting as I try to find the words to thank him. To pour my heart out, to tell him that what once sounded like a snub could be the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me, especially because it is spoken without expectation. Without the assumption that I will crawl into bed or do his bidding in the worst of ways. Who I am sounds right and good and enough when it comes from Ludor’s mouth, but if he’s right and I’ve had this deep, unconditional, accepting love then how was it possible for me to throw it away?

And if somehow, if I was capable of ruining the deepest, truest love I have and will ever know...then where do I go from here? What are the options when home is not?

“Ludor…” I begin with a lump impossibly heavy in my throat.

A bell chimes behind us, Hanekoma and Joshua both turn.

“I don’t mean to interrupt…” Hanekoma begins. “But I think this customer is for you.” He tells me gently. I flich, predicting the inevitable.

“Excuse me.” I tell Ludor apologetically, then turn around.

Neku’s eyes grow dark like storm clouds, in the doorway.

“Yeah?” He asks. “That’s what we’re doing now? You’re not even telling me you’re here?” He snaps.

“Is this your backup boyfriend if Axel doesn’t take you back?” Emyd stage whispers and not for the first time, I’m thankful beyond compare. My heart clenches in my chest as Neku’s face goes pure red.

“And you got replacement friends?” Neku throws his hands up. Ludor turns around and chuckles, looking over at the boy in the doorway.

“Is adopting moody teenage boys your favorite pastime?” Ludor asks me. I crack a smile. 

“Absolutely. Vanitas is just unlucky that he aged out of the program and became a whole ass adult before I could induct him.” I nod. “Look kid, if it makes you feel better, I don't have a phone to even text you with anymore.” I inform Neku as he lets the door finally shut behind him, still sulking with his arms crossed to his chest, now hiding in the cowl of his shirt.

“So that’s your excuse for going on some neurotic shopping spree and then straight up disappearing on Shiki and I when we both can tell you weren’t okay? She still thinks she did something wrong, you’re kind of a jackass, you know?” Neku asks me, eyes narrowing into slits.

“I’m sorry.” I make a face. Neku resurfaces from his shirt, brow softening just a little.

“You’re apologizing.” He observes. I shrug. “You’re missing a hand.”

“I bought a new one.” I waggle the fingers on my metal arm and he starts to close the distance, footsteps sluggish and irritated until he’s finally beside my stool. 

“How could you afford to, you maxed out all of your credit cards here.” Neku mutters. I laugh, he cracks a smile and jams his hands into his pockets. “You’re probably gonna hug me now.” I know this is his way of asking for a hug, so I throw my arms around him and pull him in close, his body fitting right between my legs. He doesn’t hug me back, especially not with Joshua and Hanekoma watching, but he does set his cheek on my shoulder. “When did you get rid of your phone, I had been texting you since you left.”

“I was mostly ignoring it even before I broke it. I've made a couple enemies out of old friends.” I explain.

“You? Make enemies?” He snorts, so I toss him back, holding him an arms length from me. 

“Ludor, Emyd, this is Neku. He’s my favorite of my douchey teenage children. But don’t tell the others.” I tease. 

“Please don’t say that in your out loud voice.” Neku mumbles. Emyd flat out howls.

“Oh, so this was your proxy, Yoshiya?” Ludor asks, and at that, Joshua hums, arms crossed to his chest.

“Ludor used to be the Composer of Shinjuku, Joshua has a hard on for him.” I explain.

“Truly, on your list of utter failings, that face is only second to your ability to think critically.” Joshua taunts me. Neku looks past me, toward Joshua, eyes narrowing. “And could you please stop looking at me like that, Neku, dearest? Isn’t it time to let bygones be bygones?”

“Not really.” Neku says flatly.

“Come on Phones, if Blondie’s learned a lesson in forgiveness, shouldn’t you, too?” Hanekoma asks and I turn, eyebrow quirked.

“Are you praising me instead of just telling me I’ve got a long way to go?” I ask.

“Are you done pretending people’s thoughts don’t matter to you?” Hanekoma teases, mouth pulling into a grin. “You’re always been a good egg, blondie. You’re just a tough one to crack.”

“You know, it’s Rueki.” I remind him.

“He’s not going to budge on that one.” Neku mutters. 

“Your favorite child is correct.” Ludor grins.

“I don’t like your friends.” Neku informs me.

“You don’t even really like me. Take a seat kid. This time tomorrow I’ll be fighting my friends, let me at least enjoy some time with the few I have left.” I nod toward the seat beside Emyd.

“And you’re even admitting that the people you left behind are actually your friends?” Hanekoma blinks at me. My mouth twists.

“Are you gonna give me a hard time on that?” I ask.

“As a rule, I try not to give a hard time to anyone going through a metamorphosis. Change is hard, you should be proud of yourself. The world’s in your hands. Make it count.” He cracks a smile, so do I and I open my mouth, trying to find the right words to say to express the pride bursting in my chest. But then--

The door dings open.

“You little fucking cunt!” A voice, scratchy and feminine roars out. Without looking up, I smirk into my coffee. 

“I think it’s for you.” I mumble to Joshua.

“Uh, not now, blondie.” Hanekoma mutters, looking down from his indoor sunglasses. I lift an eyebrow and turn just a bit to watch a flurry of a woman stomp in. Bright red hair cascades in waves down her back, her green eyes are sharp, there’s a mole at the corner of her mouth, she looks remarkably familiar, but when a silver haired man who looks eerily like Riku--but clearly isn’t based on the heterocromia-- follows after her, huffing, I realize that this duo only looks vaguely familiar because they nearly plowed me over when I visited Shibuya to gather Rhyme’s light. 

“If you could refrain from taking a tone with me, Madame Conductor, that would be extraordinary.” Joshua hums.

“Save the shit or I’ll put your fucking face into the goddamn countertop, Yoshiya.” She snaps.

“We’re gonna need the coffee spiked, Sanae.” The silver haired man sighs. “She’s on one.”

“I’m on one cuz this prissy little mimp fired the fucking smartest person in the UG over what? A fucking bullet that every goddamn one of us wanted to shoot at him anyway?” She slaps her hand down on the counter top, between Joshua and Ludor, but flinches, immediately. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

Ludor just chuckles and shakes his head.

“I see you’ve not changed a bit.” He grins at her.

“Other than a big fat old promotion cuz some asshat I know had to go off and chase his girlfriend.” She winks at him as she pulls a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket, packs them quickly and lights one up without a care in the world.

“Come on, you know you can’t smoke in here.” Hanekoma groans, then looks up at the man behind me. “Yozora, help a guy out.” He pleads. I do a double take at the man behind me. Yozora, huh. He does look remarkably like the character in the game Lea, Ven and I played and while that’s really weird, there’s something about this woman that’s rubbing me all kinds of strange ways, firing up neurons in my brain that hold memories I didn’t know existed. Crying as a woman brushes my hair, the sound of her humming. My gut twists, I turn back to her. That bright red hair, those green eyes, the curve of her hips…

That little mole beside her lip.

A hand grips my heart and squeezes. My mug falls straight out of my hands and shatters in the ground.

“Love, are you quite alright?” Ludor turns to me. The woman looks to me and arches a firey eyebrow.

“Is this the girl you just had to save?” The woman asks.

“No, this one’s a newer friend.” Ludor tells me. Her voice is heady and sweet, warm honey and battery acidy at the edges. “And this is Yozora, the Composer of Shinjuku, and his Conductor--”

That curve of her hips, curves just like mine. 

“Mayris.” I finish. Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline--my hairline. 

“The two of you have met?” Hanekoma asks.

“Why am I not surprised, the two most obnoxious women in the realm have met.” Joshua rolls his eyes.

“You’re my mom.”

The room goes completely silent. The cigarette damn near falls from Mayris’ full lips.

“You’re not Rueki.” She chokes.

“Oh.” Ludor clears his throat and pushes his hands against the counter, taking massive steps back to look between Mayris and I. “Oh, Twilight. May, she is.”

“I don’t understand, I thought you grew up in an orphanage?” Emyd asks.

“Exactly why you’re not my daughter, you’ve got the wrong Mayris.” Mayris says, smoothing her top as she takes a long drag of her cigarette.

“Mom…” I choke. “Radiant Garden fell to darkness. It’s back but...Braig cast some sort of spell on me and Cid and I were separated and I didn’t even remember him until...until…”

I stop talking because her big green eyes go wide and watery and with one hand, she’s clutching the countertop.

“Braig.” She hisses on that name. “Cid.” She says much gentler and fuck, my eyes are growing misty.

“He misses you and dad. He loves me a lot. More than I deserve.” I murmur. She takes a second, looks me over, looks at my hair, looks in my eyes, looks at my pointy chin and the color of my hair, and the things I know I inherited from my father.

“You’re real convincing, but you’re not--”

“You used to call me little pumpkin, didn’t you?” I ask. “I’d scream when you brushed my hair and throw myself on the ground and dad and Cid would ask you to just leave it, but you’d tell them to go to hell until I broke away and hid inside a kitchen cabinet.” 

Her eyes flash.

“You were so little, how could you remember?” She asks.

“I didn’t. Until I heard your voice. I always liked when you sang to me.” I bite my lips. “I...what was the song? Simple and something...”

“Omigod.” She breathes and shakes her head. “Fuck. Fuck.” She hands Yozora her cigarette and throws her arms around me.

She’s actually shorter than me. 

She starts humming, I recognize the tune right away and start crying.

“It’s hard to let it go.” I whisper the remnants of the lyric and she laughs, choking on a wet sob that clings to the edges of her throat. 

“Little pumpkin. It’s you.” She kisses the top of my head while standing on her toes, tears pour hot and heavy from my eyes. “Baby girl, what the fuck happened to you, who the hell hurt you?”

I fall into complete hysterics.


	55. Chapter 55

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one asked for what happens at the end of this chapter, but I'm giving it to you anyway

LIV.

Mayris takes a long drag of her cigarette. Hanekoma turns the open sign to the cafe off and locks the door. 

I think we’re all supposed to be celebrating, but my lips are trembling and I wonder if I can ever possibly have the appropriate reaction to watching someone come back from the dead.

“Remarkable.” Ludor shakes his head. “The two of you have enough similarities, I should have realized sooner.” 

Mayris won’t let go of my hand. She’s wedged between Ludor and I, standing between barstools, the hand not holding the cigarette is twined through mine and it’s painfully unfamiliar. What is familiar is coming to terms with the fact that without grieving someone properly I can’t celebrate their life. Selective numbness is the type of fantasy I dream of, the only magic that I have not encountered

“She looks more like her father.” Mayris says dreamily as she takes a drink of some amber colored liquor Hanekoma procured not long ago, saying he’d been saving it for a rainy day.

“Well this is cool.” Emyd nods. “I mean, sure, your mom’s dead but you can visit her and like actually talk to her. And she talks back.” He sounds so assuring and to anyone who remembered anything more than tangled hair and the fragment of lullabies when it came to their parents, this would probably be the type of relief that heals even the worst of wounds. But I’m always coming up empty. I flash Mayris a smile, pour more liquor into my glass and knock it back like I’m a well practiced drunk. Well, surely I’ve had more practice these last six months than the rest of my life.

Yozora looks at my mom like at any second she’s going to come unhinged, and if she’s anything like me, she probably will. Neku’s the only one who’s stealing second glances at me, his mouth twisting up when it makes the occasional reappearance from inside the cowl of his shirt.

I guess the biggest problem, the biggest issue is I don't trust this. Don’t trust it, don’t like it, don’t want it. There’s no permanence to death, no consequences in this world really exist, and I just feel like I've spent a life paying a tax, of expecting equivalence, of fighting for some damn balance and all I manage to do is grasp at straws. I can’t keep the people I’m trying to, I stumble into those I don’t plan to cross paths with again. Picking up strays, dropping off companions, grieving someone, or at least accepting their loss, only to be told the growth, the world I created around the absence of that person wasn’t even necessary in the first place. I feel redundant. I feel dry and bleak and bitter.

Mayris clears her throat next to me and releases my hand.

“I know I never got the chance to be your mom, but I’m really glad to see you made it this far, alive.” Mayris leans forward on the counter but turns back to me, brow coming together.

“She’s made it through here her fair share of times. Produce a winner, you did not.” Joshua presses his lips into a pout.

“Dude, shut the fuck up.” Mayris and I demand in otherworldly unison. I blink, she laughs. 

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Joshua rolls his eyes, like that’s somehow an insult. And to be honest, I rather like that Maryis is direct, sarcastic and fierce as hell right from the first impression. But she’s right, she was never my mom but she remembers me as her daughter and that’s not helping the dysphoria. 

“You probably have a lot of questions for me.” She hypothesizes and I’m sure I’m going to let her down.

“No, not really.” I confess. “Cid told me you worked as a guard at the castle and that he and dad were pilots. That you guys got lost in space and I really didn’t remember anything about you guys other than that.” 

Mayris is quiet as she huffs on her cigarette, eyes focused on some of the neon signs Hanekoma has hung up.

“Did he do a good job taking care of you?” Mayris asks, brow coming softly together. “Cid?”

“Yeah.” I nod. “He uh… he doesn’t know what to say most of the time and now that I’m older I can tell he was in way over his head. But he loves me a lot. And I’ve put him through a lot, I’m very thankful I have him.”

“Good.” Mayris nods. “Because there was someone else we were thinking of making your guardian, and I was pretty sure we made right right choice, I mean I’ve got my damn suspicions, but no one writes a manual on these types of things and I just…” Mayris cuts herself off, clears her throat and shakes her head.

“No, mom. I know.” I tell her. 

“Because like, I’m pretty sure Braig’s a bastard, but he was always so fucking convinced he was your dad and that he wanted to be in your life, like did I paint him as some sort of asshole when he really just was dumb enough to not see that you looked exactly like Jasper?” Mayris asks and my face colors. Ludor’s eyes go huge. He looks at me, my face gets even darker.

“Rueki.” He says my name in pure admonishment and I start shaking my head.

“Please don’t.” I beg.

“What?” Mayris asks.

“It’s not polite to keep secrets from your mother.” Hanekoma eases.

“And I’ll have to hear about it if you do.” Yozora sighs. Ludor searches my face and I want to bury it in the mug in front of me.

“Mayris, this Braig character, what was he to you?” Ludor asks. I almost cry.

“Wait a sec…” Emyd trails off as heat starts creeping down my neck.

“We were both castle guards. We’d been friends for ages, and more than that for almost as long. It was never serious though, I mean, we hooked up like all the time, like constantly… Maybe too much. Don’t follow in my footsteps, kid. Anyway, I thought he’d go away when Jasper and I got married, but instead he became obsessed with my daughter.” Mayris explains. I wonder how bad it would feel to bash my skull into the counter. I mean it can’t possibly hurt worse than anything I’ve endured before, right?

“And Rueki, did you know this, love?” Ludor asks. I think the face I make answers that entirely. “Please, please say you did not know this.”

“Wait, wasn’t Braig Xigbar’s name?” Emyd asks, eyes lighting up as my brain slowly short circuits and hopefully explodes, leaving me incapable of answering.

“Who’s Xigbar?” Mayris asks.

“Braig.” Ludor answers at the same time Emyd says “Rueki’s boyfriend.”

The air is vacuumed straight out of the room, my insides fall out, any desire that I had to survive the next twenty four hours disappears in a cloud of smoke. Suddenly, Mayris feels a lot like my mom and I’m very fucking scared of her.

“I’m sorry, I think I just hallucinated.” Mayris blinks.

“I cannot believe you knew.” Ludor gapes.

“He thought he was your dad… and you’re cheating on your husband with him…” Emyd trails off. “And you knew that he slept with your mom and you’re still… yikes.”

I don’t think ‘yikes’ begins to cover it.

“Well it’s really fucking weird if you say it like that!” I throw my hands up.

“Do you call him daddy?” Emyd cackles. This is it, I’m going to summon Backbiter and stab myself.

“No! Gross!” I snap and a memory reaches around and smacks me in the face. “I mean...at one point in time he did teleport into my room in the Castle That Never Was and suggested I leave Axel for him… and when I said he was old enough to be my dad, he did tell me I could call him daddy, but I swear I threw my journal at him and he left!” 

“I think I should leave.” Neku chokes.

“I think I should, too.” Yozora clears his throat. Mayris and I both scream ‘no’, with different levels of desperation for our boys. Me because I think having extra witnesses might save me from a slow death by my mother’s hand, Mayris, probably because she thinks Yozora will help her hide my body.

“You are grounded.” Mayris says, looking me directly in the eye. I almost answer back ‘yes mom’.

“It’s not serious, I’m an adult, I’m allowed to have casual sex with people.” I insist.

“With your mom’s ex.” Emyd mutters. 

“You know, pumpkin, you’re not doing yourself any favors by shouting that you’re an adult.” Mayris presses her full lips together.

“Right, cool, yeah. The thing you haven’t learned about me is that trust me, if you think you want to punish me over something, I’ve already yelled at myself in my own head enough over it, you’re good. You’re in the clear.” I wave a dismissive hand at her.

“Clearly not because you’re sleeping with Braig.” She throws both hands up.

“You don’t get it, he has a piece of my heart and I have a piece of his and I hate my life and he gets me high on light.” I explain, driving myself further up a wall. I sound like an actual lunatic.

“Omigod, he has a piece of your heart and you have a piece of his? I do not believe you came out with your father’s common sense, there’s no other explanation for how you could possibly say something so fucking stupid like you meant it.” She groans. My face goes hot.

“Are you saying my father, who had blond hair and green eyes like me, was an idiot?” I blink.

“Ugh, that’s not the point.” She waves a hand. “Your dad was nice. And loyal as hell, wanted to save everyone’s day, he was chipper as fuck, he didn’t need to be smart.”

My dad was basically Del and I’m dating my mom’s ex. The apple might still be in the damn tree. 

“Well I have one hand and a face full of scars and no tits, which apparently I got from you, so beggars can’t really be choosers, mom!” I snap. “Besides, he sucks, I’m breaking up with him tomorrow, but he’s charming as shit, can you really fault me?”

“Yes, I can! Because I made the same mistake. Did I hear that correct, you’re married?” She asks.

“I mean, Axel kind of broke things off with her too…” Emyd mutters, I think this time more in my defense.

“Axel…” Mayris wrinkles her nose. “That’s a familiar name.”

“The redheaded man that traveled with Riku and Kairi. You were very busy harassing Riku, you didn’t speak to him much. But he was on a mission to find his wife in Shibuya.” Yozora pipes up and I color. Of course. Of fucking course my mom has met my husband.

“Please tell me that gorgeous slice of human being is not your Axel.” Mayris shoots me an exhausted look. I glare into my cup of coffee.

“I thought I was the only one who made Riku uncomfortable.” I answer.

“That Axel is your husband and you are sleeping with Braig?” She just about steams, I’m almost certain my mom turns into a bear at the edge of my vision but when I turn again, she’s still incredibly human. And I’m still very aware I downgraded.

“Look, Em’s right, I thought he left me, I hooked up with Braig, I found out Axel didn’t have a side piece and I broke things off. It was only after he told me he didn’t want me back that I went back to Braig.” I explain. “And I don’t need to defend myself.”

“You absolutely do. And you’re still grounded.” She ashes her cigarette, which has gone extinguished between two fingers, pulls out another from her pack and lights it up, ignoring me completely until after she takes a long drag and rolls her head back, eyes up on the ceiling. “You’re so tight with Braig, he’s got a little piece of your heart, why don’t you ask him what the fuck happened to the fuel tank of your father’s ship.”

My burning hot face goes cold, as though the wind has been knocked out of me. I reel, Ludor’s head snaps in her direction, my hands are limp on the counter.

“You and dad got lost in space.” I repeat the words like cold comfort, as though they can banish what she had just told me.

“I don’t have any proof or anything. But your dad was a damn good pilot. Didn’t miss routine shit like a leak in the fuel tank. Between he and Cid that shit would’ve been sorted out. I just know we filled up before we left Radiant Garden, and then suddenly we’re out halfway to the middle of nowhere and our fuel goes from full to empty. We’re too far out from anywhere to try our communications. All we could do was float through space, praying that something would shoot us out of the sky or we’d drift into some world’s orbit. And I did. Your dad didn’t make it, I barely did. Landed in Shinjuku, hit the ground, and the rest is history. But all that time I had drifting around, all I could think was how would this happen? What could’ve gone wrong? Could someone be responsible for this? The only answer, the only logical thing I could think was damn, Braig was real pissed when I made Cid your godfather. He really wanted claim to you, the second you were born, everything else in the world stopped existing to him. There’s a part of me that thought I was just trying to line up pieces, but if you two are together…” Mayris takes a long drag, her brow wrinkled her eyes horrified. I don’t think the expression on my face is too different. I reach out and take her hand into mine and squeeze it, hard. She looks at me, mouth parted, I drag my lips across my teeth. I don’t want a single one of her worries to make sense. I really don’t.

But if Luxu threw Skuld into my life, wanted me to be Xehanort’s vessel so he could keep an eye on me and sent me out into Transmute City, then what else would he do to keep me close? To ensure his destiny came to fruition, to confirm I would wind up at his side, in his arms, his guiding key, his alchemist? Is anyone in his lifetimes of existence anything more than collateral damage to him? Am I anything more?

Mayris and I lock eyes, there’s nothing else I could possibly say to make the words she spoke leave the air between the two of us. There’s not a single word in the realm that mends this, that brings her back, that erases her flying around the realm, without any control, her only companion my father’s corpse. And there’s nothing that changes that the man taking me to bed every night might be the very reason I grew up without her.

“Can you…” I chew my lips. “Can you tell me about dad?”

\--

“Did you kill my parents?” 

I haven’t suddenly become good at subtlety. Despite ‘playing the game’ for months, I’m not suddenly capable of weaseling information tactfully from someone. I’m not clever or smooth or anything right now other than blinded by the hot branding of emotions I thought I shucked aside.

Rather than making an entrance in the Master’s study, I find Luxu alone in the library, my face is red as I clench the door frame with white knuckles. I don’t really want to put on a show right now. Lost in the heat of my own tunnel vision, I see only Luxu. Not the books, not the decor, not even my hair falling into my face.

Unsurprisingly, Luxu looks up, rolling his eye, heaving a sigh.

“You think this is what I want to do tonight?” He asks. “I told you, the breaking up and making up thing doesn’t work for me.”

“I’m not playing a goddamn game, answer my question!” I storm in, letting the door slam shut behind me. “Did you kill my parents?”

“Your parents got lost in space, kiddo. Cut the tantrum, you knew that.” He waves his hand at me, dismissive, uncaring. It boils my blood.

“My dad was a seasoned pilot, how the hell did they get lost in space?” I snap.

“You are the queen of cynicism. You put it together. Random occurrences are shitty, but they’re random.” He tells me. I stomp straight over to where he’s draped across a sofa, and I feel microscopic and massive all in one.

“Don’t patronize me. I’m not a fucking idiot, you lie to me like it’s your day job, but for fucking once, just tell me the truth.” I plead. 

“Why are you suddenly so obsessed with the idea that I’m responsible for your parents death? It’s been nearly twenty years.” He presses his lips. So I throw all of my cards out onto the table.

“Because Shinjuku’s Composer and Conductor decided to pay Wildkat a visit.” I tell him.

Abruptly, his face goes ashen, the scar on his face and the circle beneath his eye are suddenly so pronounced.

“So what?” He asks me, color washing quickly across his skin once more, but I can’t forget the way he looked, as though every last sin had finally caught up with him.

“Omigod!” I shout. “So what? Those are my parents?”

“And where’s your proof, little Rueki?” He asks. “You got a visit from some dead people.”

“From my fucking mom and you know that!” I snap, kicking the sofa he’s on. Finally, he sits up, rolling his eye, his shoulders, his entire body as though I’ve turned into the worst type of inconvenience. “You don’t ask me for proof, I’m asking you as the person I’m with, to look at me and convince me that you didn’t tamper with my parents fuel tank.”

“Right. Cuz you’d make Axel do that. Is there ever gonna be a time you don’t saddle me with the short end of the stick?” He ask.

And that’s it. My complete and utter fever pitch. 

“You can’t even look at me and tell me you didn’t take the only biological family I had from me! You take everything, you took any sense of normalcy I could’ve had growing up by taking my memories and throwing me in the furthest world from my soulmate, you throw someone into my life who you know will drive me to you, away from everything I’ve ever known and loved! I’m just asking you to tell me you didn’t take one damn thing from me and you can’t even fucking do it!” I shriek. Tears start to burn in my eyes, stinging as they spill down my cheeks.

“Fine.” He says flatly. “I didn’t touch your parents fuel tank.” There’s no way he could’ve said that with less sincerity if he tried.

I don’t even slap him.

“There’s nothing that’s too much for you, is there?” My voice shakes in its whisper, but I’ve never felt stronger about the words I speak. “You don’t love me at all, you love owning something, get a damn dog, Xigbar.”

“Luxu.” He correct me, voice dipping low and dangerous and I know he’s a powder keg, but I don’t care what kind of match I’m about to strike.

“You can’t rob a human being of everything and everyone else just so you mean more.” I shake my head.

“I spent so long waiting for you, Rueki. I held off loving another person until you came along, and you took so damn long. I was emotionally starved.” He reminds me.

“That’s not my fault!” I snap.

“As if. Grow the hell up and take some responsibility for your destiny.” He tells me. “You’re so fucking self righteous. You act like your love is so unconditional, but you’re just a little fucking junkie, squirt. You wouldn’t even be tolerable to be around if you weren’t always jonesing for a little extra light.”

“Well goddamn. Maybe if someone hadn’t taken everything they could from me, I wouldn’t be so hungry to bring one positive feeling back into my life.” I seethe.

“Boo hoo.” He says. “Terrible things happen every day. You’re not the only one in the world who's ever been sad. You’re pathetic.”

I do still want light. Even right now, the need pulsates in my chest, in a heart that can no longer handle all the weight thrust upon it. My insides burn, I want to demand he fix what he spent lifetimes ruining for me, I want to cast my pride aside and beg for a taste of something that feels good.

But with every bit of stubbornness that my shaky hands and tumultuous heart can muster, I ball up fists and turn around.

“I can’t be with you anymore, this is done.” And I go for the door.

“Better mean that, squirt. It’s gonna look fucking sad when you come crawling back cuz you just wanna get high and get dicked.” He snorts. At the door, I pause, thousands of retorts brew. Everything between ‘I fucked Lea’ and ‘no amount of light is worth staying with you’. But there’s not a word I could say that would take this man’s aching self righteousness and crush it back down into place. I don’t want to give the energy to do it.

So I push past the doors, push past every door, every wall until I’m outside and the moon and stars are leering down at me, reminding me that the position I’m in, not quite with people but not quite in the sky. Still, in my limbo, I’m more comfortable than I’ve ever been. I look down at my arm, almost as though I’m truly imagining shackles finally cast free. Without the light, I will suffer for the rest of the night. But at least I get to suffer without the real anvil latched to my ankle. 

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when Vanitas stomps out into the blackness with me. He hums, snorts and sinks down next to me.

“Shouldn’t you be on your knees or something?” He asks me.

“Nope.” I pop my lips on the ‘p’. “Xigbar killed my parents.”

“That sucks.” What a deep sense of solidarity this little fucker is capable of. 

“I just can’t wait until this is all over.” I murmur. Even though Lea will under no circumstances, take me back. Even though I lost an arm for Kairi and burned my bridge with her in tandem. Even though Roxas, whose favorite person I am, probably can no longer stand me. For the first time since I fled from Del and Amaya in Transmute City, I have no roots, no idea of where to go, where to run, how far or how fast. Midgar is a prospect, but there are a lot of prospects, and each have the same problem. I found home, and none of the places I contemplate are it. Daybreak Town could be, but entire realms away are not far enough away from Luxu.

“I’m not sure where that leaves me.” Vanitas mumbles. I lift an eyebrow and turn more fully toward him. “I am darkness. Not even pure light can break through me. What am I supposed to do, being the one black spot in the realm?”

I reach over and set my flesh hand on his, he makes a face.

“I fucking hate when you do that.” He mutters.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” I ask. His face crinkles up and he shakes his head. So I circle my body around him and pull him to me. 

“Never talk about this.” He grumbles.

“Never.” I promise.

“I didn’t get why Ventus would rather be around his little friends, than be with me, be whole.” He mutters.

“But now…” I prompt.

“I’m not gonna say it.” He replies, but I feel the answer in his heart. He doesn’t like people, he doesn’t even really like me, but in the parasitic way I force people to like me, I found my way beneath his skin, and against me, like this, he understands why Ventus would want to submit to the softness that is his home.

“Can I tell you that what you went through wasn’t right and never deserved to happen to you?” I ask.

“No one ever says that to Ventus.” He mutters. “We went through the same extraction.” But I know the big difference, even if Vanitas won’t accept it. Ventus was loved. Vanitas was broken.

“You know, I just gave up shots of light. But I should have given them up when you weren’t offered them any more.” I say.

“That’s stupid. You’re weak, you need it, what would that have done for you?” He asks me and I just shrug, arms still wrapped around him.

“Misery loves company. And for someone who can read your heart, I want to be on your side.” I tell him.

“Cuz you’re miserable too.” He mutters, I crack a smile. “So damn miserable, you’re only happy when I’m breaking your face open.”

“Through all of this, I think getting hurt might be the only way I’m sure I’m still alive.” I move one arm out in front of him, just so he can see the one still made of flesh and blood. “The little moon shaped scars? I did those to myself. I kept clocking out, disconnecting when Kairi died. I kept telling myself that losing her was the problem, but I think it was me. I think I promised myself and everyone around me peace and healing, despite the pain. To be honest, I think I got so used to the war that when it was done, instead of trying to heal, I wanted to wage a new one.”

“And this was your battleground?” He asks, incredulous as he almost but not quite touches the fingernail scars on my forearm and palm. “That’s stupid.” But I don’t correct him, because it was stupid, but my shortcomings and his fit together so perfectly. “But...it’s probably a good thing you’re stupid. Cuz when I’m… alone too long, or haven’t fought anything in so long… I wanna summon Darklings or Unversed and just…” Destroy them and everything that makes up himself, in tandem. 

“What about now?” I ask. “Wanna beat me up a little?”

“You’re so fucked up.” He shakes his head.

“Let’s be real, no one in this castle is sleeping soundly tonight. Maybe if we go hard enough, I’ll pass out.” I offer.

“So dumb.” He mutters.

“Do you want to?” I ask. For a moment, he rejects my words all together, he grows tense between my arms. Finally, with a tight jaw and hands balled into fists for reasons I don’t understand, he nods.

And we go hard.

I’m rushing at him, fists at the ready and he’s taking me down into the dirt. I kick him in the stomach, but he twists an arm behind my back and starts pounding my face into the ground again, rolling me into the bricks. I brace myself, because I know this is going to hurt, when pebbles and debris ram themselves in my skin.

But my mind is clear and there will never not be something exhilarating about knowing I’m the one in control of the violence that he rains down on me. Again and again, he pounds my face into the ground, I don’t think either of us can breathe for a very log time, but when we come up for air, my face is soaked, blood drips down the front of my chest. Vanitas crawls off of me and we watch in amazement. 

I stare down at the blood pooled on the bricks, clutching my nose and mouth. Vanitas stares too, seeming to have stopped breathing. His hands shake, his shoulders heave. He ducks down, crouching quite deep as I run my tongue across the inside of my mouth. Great, because my dental work wasn’t already fucked to the high heavens.

I pinch my eyes shut and turn away before the blood slithers off of the teeth he knocked out of my mouth.

“How many are there?” I ask, but it comes out like ‘how niny r thur’. I’m sure I could probe around my gums, but I’m really not sure that I want to know and if he doesn’t answer, I won’t ask twice.

“Three.” Vanitas breathes, sounding maybe a little too mesmerized with his handiwork. Okay, whatever, the kid has issues, he’s always a little too proud of his violence. It has nothing to do with him. 

Or me. Or the way my heart’s racing and I’m hyper aware of the blood pumping through the veins in my face, pouring out of my mouth. The coiling in my belly isn’t an issue, it’s justice. I deserve this, I probably should have been punched like this a long time ago, I’ve got a hard on for karmic retribution, this isn’t weird.

I turn, stealing a glance at my teeth. It’s not weird that I’m not bothered by the visible roots of them, this has happened before. 

It’s not an issue that words are forming on the tip of my tongue, and with heavy, blood stained lips, I’m about to ask for more. 

What is a problem, is the actual hard on he’s trying to cover. My eyes go wide. He’s bright red and flustered. He curls in on himself and slams a hand so hard against the bricks, I have no doubt his palm is split wide open. 

“Van?” I ask.

“You look so fucking stupid.” He hisses. “I’m not into you, you’re not attractive, I don’t get why this happens every single goddamn time I--”

Every time he beats the ever living fuck out of me.

Each time we’ve sparred he’s gone too far, each time, I’ve let him, each time he rushes away and turns into the biggest douche under the sun when finally I’m trying to share vulnerability.

My breath catches in my throat, pushing at my ribs as though trying to spread them wide open. My mouth parts, more blood spills out.

“Dammit.” Vanitas curses, pushing himself half way to his feet before I catch his hand in mine. Our eyes meet, I crawl right to his feet, kneeling just high enough that I can unbuckle his belt. “I’m not asking you to-- I’m not into you!” He hisses.

“I know.” I say, sounding once more like I’m lisping under water. I hardly give a fuck. “This doesn’t have to mean that.” I coax the pants off of him and pull his cock out of the slit of his boxers. “I know this is the only time you don’t feel like shit, the only time you think you mean anything.” My fingertips brush the tops of his thighs, he hisses at the cool burn of metal.

“Shut up, bitch.” He snaps. My eyes flick up, hazy and tantalizing.

“Maybe you should make me.” I breathe. We stare at each other for a second and finally, he does what I plead of him.

He fucking takes me. 

He grabs my hair into his hands, and slams my mouth onto him. He has his way, he breaks me down, he controls me.

He hurts me.

And between my blood and saliva spilling down his thighs, and the explicits he calls me beneath his breath, he comes apart in minutes, like he’s never been touched, like he’s never been cared for, like this is the closest thing he’s ever known to love.

I swallow him down along with the bitter realization that it most certainly is. 

He releases my hair and sinks down on his knees beside me, sighing shakily as he rests his head on my shoulder. It think it’s supposed to be a sweet and vulnerable gesture, but realize that while it may have started as one, it’s quickly transformed. 

He snatches the fabric of my hoodie and yanks it over my head. He bites down on my shoulder hard enough to leave a mark. He unzips my skort, and I kick it off as he presses my back onto the bricks.

“You want this.” He more says than asks as he tears my panties straight off with hands too big for the lithe arms they belong to. He’s not wrong though, and when he pushes into me, already hard, I twist my arms around his shoulders and whine his name into his neck, just so he knows someone will, so someone can. He doesn’t push me anywhere, doesn’t work me toward any edge, other than the knife’s edge of my mind, which I’m wildly spiralling down. I like this, the way my back is littered with cuts I’ll have no excuse for, the fact that nails have left indents all over my body and he’s not once trying to cover it with the facade of love or charisma. Vanitas is violent and volatile, he tears my body and throat to shreds and I’m thankful for every second of it because at least he's honest about it.

He’s not trying to claim me, he’s not trying to own me, he’s not demanding more than I can give. Beneath him I’m weak, I’m fragile. I think for the first time since Sora and Kairi came back, I’m Rueki again, I’m breakable and that’s all I need to be, I’m sad and that’s okay, I’m crumbling and I can’t keep going on like this and this man doesn’t pretend that he loves me enough to scrape me by.

This man isn’t gaslighting me with the fantasy he was brainwashed into believing as a boy. 

This man isn’t the man who loves me enough to want me to want to have a future.

Vanitas fills my head and my lungs and my body until the very moment he tips over the edge, pulls out and cums in my face. 

In my hair, on my lips. I’m sticky, a mess of painted bodily fluid. He looks hellishly victorious, I wait for him to kick me in the ribs or throw dirt on me. It’ll be fine if he does, I tell myself. Because I’m going to get used, so why shouldn’t I choose who gets to spit into me like I’m a rag? Why can’t I take the hands of someone I know doesn’t want me, why can’t I chase violence rather than love, because I know I’m good at violence and shit at love, so if the best I can be is the punching bag for someone I don’t have feelings for anyway then--

He scoops my teeth off the ground with one hand then extends the other to me. I blink at him, wiping the mess off my face.

“Xigbar will probably be lurking by your room. You can use my shower if you want.”My heart starts to sting. 

I take his hand, he pulls me up and doesn’t let me clatter to the ground.

“You grabbed my teeth.” I say.

“Well, you need them, right?” He lifts an eyebrow. “For whatever weird healer shit you do.” 

“They’re a pain in the ass to fix.” I explain.

“Well, you did it before .” He says. 

“ThatI did.” I agree.

He smirks. My heart starts to beat like normal again. The clouds of Luxu’s presence are shifting. Lea is gone. There’s no sun to light my path but--

But I think I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight. Or on Elrena’s floor if Luxu really is lurking around my room. Because I think I’d rather stumble through the night, hoping one day the sun might rise again, than to stagger through the clouds and never appreciate the mirror the obsidian blackness casts upon me.

Nothing is okay. I have single handedly wrecked my own life. But I did it. Me. No one gets to take that away from me.

And maybe my own decay is closer to a happy ending than a quick death can ever be.


	56. Chapter 56

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends!  
Do you know what tomorrow is? It's the two year posting anniversary of this series and hot damn, time has flown so fast, it makes my head spin. So whether you've been here since that very first day or you're just no reading this, I am so thankful for you guys. Whether I remember to respond to comments or just see them and smile, while I love writing this fic for me, you guys are the extra fuel that keeps me going, even when I don't feel like writing. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey, and as a reward, from here on out, were returning to twice a week posting, on Wednesdays and Sundays and we won't be changing that up anymore because, well, to be frank, I've got the rest of this fic finished. Which is beautiful and sad af. The correlating chapters of Tempest, I'll post with the chapter they go along with, and make note of that up in the notes, but like damn, thanks for hanging out. You guys are the best and have made every bit of this journey satisfying.

LV.

“He’s not waiting out there.” Vanitas draws his head back into his room, I’m still wrapped in a towel, my hair is still absolutely soaked and spilling onto his carpet. My lips purse, like I just bit into a lemon, I narrow my eyes.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not in my room.” I say.

“You’re being paranoid.” He rolls his eyes at me and makes this big show of going to sit down on his bed, arms crossed to his chest, daring me to continue my protests. 

Meanwhile, I’m casually freezing my ass off as the delicious heat from the shower I just took--after his shower, because he decided I needed to fix my teeth first and despite just being balls deep inside of me, apparently a shower together is far too intimate--evaporates off of my skin.

“And you’re being weirdly possessive of your fucking clothes. I’m sure your drawers came just as stocked as mine did, just loan me some sweats and a shirt so I don’t need to run out of your room in just a towel. His face goes red.

“You’re not sleeping in here.” He tells me, I roll my eyes. One step forward and three steps back with him, always, but at least I’m a little better equipped for handling it nowadays. 

“I didn’t think I’d be allowed to in the first place, I’m actually gonna go see if Elrena wants company tonight, but there is no way in hell I’m fitting into her clothes.” Even Vanitas’ clothes will be a bit of a tight squeeze, but hopefully his height makes up for what he lacks in width.

“What, so she can speculate cuz you’re wearing my clothes?” He barks, I roll my eyes.

“You know, me wearing your clothes is a hell of a lot more innocent than me coming out of your room in just a towel, dude.” I remind him. Somehow, Vanitas goes even redder. He stalks over to his dresser, pulls out black sweats and a black shirt and literally throws them straight at me. I catch them, my towel drops to the ground and Vanitas looks like he wants to bury his head.

“Do you need to be so shameless?” He asks. I raise an eyebrow, but yank his shirt over my head.

“What crawled up your ass?” I ask.

“I’m not your new boyfriend, I told you, I’m not attracted to you. At all.” He insists. I draw a very pointed breath in through my nose and try to send a little bit of a calming influence from my heart into his. He narrows his eyes at me. “What did I tell you about not playing in my heart, witch?”

“I don’t want you to be my boyfriend.” I tell him, cutting straight through it.

“Right, that’s why you got on your knees.” He seethes. 

“And you got hard because you’re not attracted to me.” Oh, that was mean, actually. I’m almost certain my blood was what turned him on and had nothing to do with who it was coming from. “Sorry.” 

He glares up at me.

“I don’t want to date you though, that can just be what it is.” I explain.

“I’ve been in your dumb head before, I know how well you do with that type of relationship.” He grumbles. I laugh, a dry ‘ha’.

“Yeah, it didn’t stay that way with Lea cuz he was my soulmate, and I let Luxu get into the feelings stuff cuz he wanted to. We don’t need to do that ever again, if you don’t wanna see me after tomorrow, that’s fine too.” He needs someone to respect his boundaries, all I’m having to do is be submissive, verbally to him. I realize this is harder than being physically submissive to him and maybe that’s what we have in common most of all is an absolute inability to talk to people. And he’s not going to figure out how to close this distance, so I’m going to have to.

I finish dressing, which seems to make him a little more comfortable, and then I come over and sit down on the bed next to him. His eyes narrow into slits.

“Why?” He asks. I blink.

“So, I’ve got this thing where vagueness drives me fucking nuts.” I inform him.

“Why are you not trying to date me? Why is it different with me?” Oh. Yikes. How do I tell him it’s because I think he is so incredibly fucked up and that I don’t think I can get him to a point where he’s not volatile enough and we’re able to coexist as a couple because Xehanort screwed him up so fucking bad? I card a hand through my wet hair.

“Cuz you’re not injected into my heart or my soulmate. What we did was actually our choice, no weird forces at work. Things are different that way.” I explain. He seems to mull it over a bit, glaring down at the carpet, and for a minute, I think he’s done talking.

“I don’t want to...not see you again.” He tells me. “You’re the only one who… gets it.” 

And I’m officially roped into being as screwed up as him. He’s not wrong.

“Well, whatever you wanna do then, I’m down.” I say. His eyes go wide, he looks up at me, and the look on his face is close to fear, but when I reach into his heart, I don’t feel fear, I feel something else, a lot more complicated, a lot more conflicted.

“Why?” He asks, and I realize that he’s just so thrown off that anyone would volunteer to spend time with him, it’s clear that he doesn’t trust it. Or me. 

“Because you’re darkness. And I’m starting to think I’m closer to that than I am light and maybe this brand new world we’re creating won’t feel right for either of us. It could be cool if we both had someone that understood to help navigate things...and I’m not being weird. We can go on completely platonic, friendly adventures. It seriously doesn’t need to be more than that.” I assure him, holding up a hand for him to high five. He narrows his eyes at it, grabs my wrist and pulls it over to him, looking at it like he’s searching for something hidden in it. And then he smacks me right in the face with my own hand, a wolfish smile on his face as my hand hits the bed. I open my mouth to shoot something scathing at him, but he yanks me up by the same arm, and I stagger forward as he continues pulling me to the door. “Um are we gonna offer up any explanation?” 

“You wanted to see your girlfriend.” He announces and I groan, low.

“Don’t tease me, I would love for Elrena to be my girlfriend.” I counter. At the edge of his face, I can see him roll his eyes.

“You’re screwed up.” He tells me. Obviously, I fucked him. We trudge down the hall, toward Elrena’s room and when we get there, I knock on the door. Abruptly, Vanitas shifts. He looks like he’s going to run away at any second, from where he stands beside me, but just as my heart senses he’s about to bolt--and just before I close my arms around him and demand he stay put and just tough it out just long enough to be social--Elrena answers her bedroom door. Maybe I should be shocked that Ludor, Emyd and Lauriam are already sprawled out across the floor of her room, passing around a bottle of liquor, and I guess I kind of am, but pleasantly so.

“Xigbar’s looking for her.” Vanitas blurts, face red as he shoulders past Elrena into her room. Her and I stare at each other, I shrug.

“He’s not housebroken yet, sorry. I’m working on that.” I offer as an explanation.

“Well, Emyd said you found out Xigbar killed your mom...after everyone else found out you already knew he screwed your mom.” Elrena leers. I have zero to say in defense of myself.

“I never said I wasn’t a garbage can.” I remind her. “Would it make a difference if I told you that I broke it off with Luxu?” I ask.

“Not really, you’re exactly the type of dumb girl that gets back together with her ex a week later.” I’ve never felt so called out in my life. “But you’re still my only girl friend.” 

“In a girlfriend way or in a platonic female friend way, cuz I can tell you one person that could ensure I don’t go back to Luxu.” I wiggle my eyebrows at her. She groans loudly, grabs my wrist and drags me into her room, letting the door close behind us.

“Rueki!” Emyd cheers, Elrena winces. I feel like I should probably ask her whether he came to her room on his own or what, but I’m not sure how to approach it in front of everyone. 

“Yo.” I nod.

“Have a drink.” He pats the ground between him and Ludor, but Vanitas flashes me a desperate look, so I sink down beside the golden eyed boy. Elrena sits between me and Lauriam, tucking her knees up tight like she’s trying so hard not to touch Emyd’s body with her own. She twists around, procuring another two cups from a bedside table and hands them to Vanitas and I. Lauriam is quick to pour for us and I take the drink, whatever it is, like a shot. It burns going down so I’m pretty sure I’m doing it right. Vanitas makes a face at the liquor.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” I tell him, because I kind of wish someone said that to me, though I can more than hold my own. Petulantly, he knocks back the liquid in his cup and doesn’t so much as shiver as he slams it back to the ground.

“Next you’re gonna tell me this is what normal people do the night before a war.” He rolls his eyes.

“You didn’t daydream about what the world would turn into, while having drinks with your friends, the night before the last war?” I ask.

“I don’t have friends.” Vanitas snarls, like this somehow makes him better than the rest of us, his guard so much more intact with prying eyes around us. 

“While I can attest to drinking with Elrena before the last war, I don’t think either of us had any fantasies about what the future would yield.” Lauriam muses.

“Right, because Xehanort’s plan sucked.” Emyd gives a big fat thumbs down and extends his cup to Lauriam, who pours him more.

“That’s very true. The world he wanted to create was more a dark necessity for all of us, was it not?” Ludor asks. 

“Siding with him was the only way I got to come back and get revenge on the losers who killed me.” Elrena’s mouth forms a pout.

“The only way I got to be safe from another fight.” Emyd shakes his head. “Though come to think of it, that’s how Xigbar sweet talked me into joining this side. And we still have to fight tomorrow.”

“How’s that working for you?” Elrena rolls her eyes at him.

“Actually, not bad.” Emyd replies. “I mean, I don’t really wanna fight tomorrow, don’t be shocked if I dip out until that’s all done, but this has been nice. All the times we had ice cream on the hill, or talked on the training grounds.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “It’s made all of this worth it.”

“What will make all of this worth it, is seeing my sister’s face once more.” Lauriam smiles. “That’s all I want from this. That’s what I imagine. Picking flowers with Sterlitizia. She has no memories of death or pain. The world is safe for her to practice magic in, not a dark thought crosses either of our minds.” Lauriam’s dreams paint a beautiful picture, a summer afternoon dressed in white, in the gardens. I almost open my mouth and tell him that I dream of his sister on the regular, but at the last second, I chew my lips and decide this time wouldn’t be any more right than any other. Just like I can’t close the distance with Vanitas when the others are around, I don’t want to share this secret with Lauriam when other ears are listening.

“Maybe I’ll ask for my memories back.” Emyd muses and Elrena’s eyes flash. I make a move to reach out and squeeze her hand but think the better of it. The intimacy of the relationships I have with everyone in this room doesn’t translate well into social situations, but I realize I’m invested in all of them, maybe more than I am in myself. I have no idea what tomorrow holds for me when Lea made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want me, that we are on different sides and no amount of love we had or have for each other will change things unless I go running to him in the next few hours, denouncing everything I spent the past several months fighting for. The closest thing I have to a lead is maybe working with Reno, but I really don’t know if more war is how I handle the violence inside of me or not. I also don’t know if daydreaming of him is me trying to claim back my unattainable soulmate. Offhandedly, I think of how much I wish we never shared that paopu fruit, but at the same time what would it have mattered? Our souls are already connected. I lightly touch the mark on my hip and consider the one behind Elrena’s ear. Maybe she’s right, maybe we’re both made to feel the awareness of the bond in the worst of ways, maybe we’re both the chasers, the thunder chasing the rain, the storm putting out a wildfire.

Maybe we should count ourselves lucky for the time we spent with our soulmates, but damn, if I can’t have mine, she at least deserves hers.

“Why the sudden desire?” Ludor asks and Emyd shrugs.

“Well, I’ll have nothing else going on. And if the world is made all of light, then nothing that happened will really bug me. If it does, apparently Xigbar gives shots of light if you suck his dick and call him daddy.” Emyd grins and my face flashes, hot and red.

“He’s cut off, no one give him more alcohol.” I announce, taking his cup straight out of his hands. I pound back the rest of his drink while he protests and then I set the cup on the nightstand. Elrena chews her lips, grinding her palms into the plush of her carpet.

“Well, obviously I’ll have to drag your dumb ass around and help you piece your life back together.” She mutters.

“That could be fun.” He muses. “You’ve gotta fight all my battles for me though, you know I’m not into that.” Her face starts to color, she looks down and I think damn, if only Emyd had any inkling of an idea of what that might mean to her.

“Yeah. Could be fun.” She says, almost under her breath, a prayer she’s afraid to hope on.

“It’s rather funny, isn’t it.” Ludor considers. “Building the future to chase the past.”

“If my sister comes back to life as a teenager, I’m locking her away from you.” Lauriam teases, Ludor chuckles. 

“To have the chance sit beside the fountain with Skuld and Ephemer again would be heavenly.” Ludor decides.

“Do you think Skuld will forgive you for being on this side of things?” I ask.

“Aren’t you optimistic that when light washes over all of us, Axel will forgive you?” He asks. Optimistic isn’t the word I’d use.

“I don’t really see that happening.” I avert my eyes, staring into my cup.

“Then what are you chasing, love?” Ludor asks. I extend my cup to Lauriam, requesting another drink, which I knock back quickly. Ludor’s question doesn’t feel any more accessible than it did before the shot, but I doubt there’s enough alcohol in existence that could make me feel good about my situation.

“I want to get far enough away from Luxu where he can’t chase me ever again.” I finally say. “Anything with Kairi or Lea or Roxas or Del or Amaya… If anyone forgives me, I’ll be shocked. If what I want out of life can be compatible with any of their lives… I’ll…” I don’t know, I won’t believe it, that’s for sure. How many fights have I had with Kairi? How many with Lea? All I can manage to do for Roxas and Amaya is put them into situations where they have to choose between me and their significant other, and that’s not fair. And Del… well if there’s anyone I know that wants to stand by what he feels is right as hard as I do, it’s him. It’s a fucking shame we’re on the opposite sides. Besides, I look at my metal arm and think about how it’s long past time I stop sacrificing myself for people that don’t want me anymore. 

“We could always go back to Midgar.” Elrena grins.

“Reno did offer me a job.” I bite back a smile. 

“Of course he did.” She rolls her eyes, but the smile doesn’t ebb.

“And that’s it?” Lauriam asks. “You, who have crusaded so hard, that’s all you want is to get away from your ex?” 

Vanitas flashes me a very pointed look and I know right away that voicing aloud that we’re all set to go on adventures together after this is not something I will get away with and live to tell the tale.

“Well, I don’t know what being happy looks like without Lea. But I figured out how to make new friends.” I shrug. “If the world is made of light, then I’ll find a way. When the dark’s gone, it’ll be easier.” And I won’t just have one place or one person to call home. And damn, maybe it won’t fit quite as perfect as Lea and I did, but even when Kairi died, I didn’t want us to fit. I fought that dream becoming a reality with teeth and nails. Even if the stars line up just so and Lea does forgive me, what’s to stop me from tearing myself to pieces questioning it? No, the fact of the matter is that he is someone who can answer the call of justice and settle into peace and not feel like he’s trading one face for the other. I know better now than to think I can. I know well enough now that I’m never going to give either of us an easy life and I’m always going to want to pick my battles, rather than let anyone pick them for me. 

“We’re all such losers.” Elrena makes a face.

“To the sad adults club!” Emyd scoops his cup up off the ground and raises it in a toast. 

“To the sad adults club!” I agree. We toast, and none of the wistfulness disappears, but hell, does it ever feel better to have company in these shadows.


	57. Chapter 57

LVI.

At the edge of sunrise, I finally dream.

A half hour of sleep is the best I’ve got in me, and for the first time in what feels like lifetimes, it’s not a nightmare, nor does it feel like the traditional, voyeuristic dreams of Strelitzia and the girl in pink.

I feel the plush of grass across my bare feet, I watch morning light filter in from wispy clouds. Those spiky, orange petals flutter around me. Strelitzia picks the petals from one, whispering something to herself as she curls her legs up to her chest. The breeze kisses the rise of my cheekbones and Streltizia looks up, as though she’s been expecting me.

“You’re still here.” She says. “Lady Ava didn’t think you would be.”

“What did you think?” I ask.

“Well, I’m here. I wouldn’t be without you, I know better.” She casts this knowing little smirk in my direction.

“I don’t really understand.” I confess.

“He must truly care for you.” She says.

“Who?” I ask.

“Oh, you know. He’s there in the shadows, can’t you see him?” She points the hand that was once plucking flower petals toward trees, toward woodlands where shadows fall deep and dark and tantalizing. I don’t even realize how drawn to them I am until I finally exhale the breath I was holding.

“I don’t see anyone.” I say.

“No, I suppose not.” She resigns, returning to plucking the petals from the flower.

“Why doesn’t Lauriam dream of you?” As I ask her this, stray bits of pink, discolored dandelion fluff in the dawn of my dreams, starts to cloud her image and mine. We’re in the woods now, she’s in a clearing with light beaming on her. I’m at the edge, watching the way the sun dances across the high points of her skin.

“That’s my secret.” She muses, smiling down at the flower she destroys.

“And I can’t be in on it?” I ask. She looks up, eyes meeting mine through the haze of her bangs.

“You are.” She assures me. “You won’t be asleep much longer. And Lady Ava was insistent that I tell you that what you’ve been holding on tight to, you must let go. It’s the heart that matters most.” It sounds like gibberish to me, but she’s just the messenger. And honestly, these are just dreams. 

“Why isn’t she here?” I ask. Strelitzia giggles.

“She is in her way. You know, the Foretellers were gods to us as children, but Lady Ava is as human as you or I. She’s afraid you’re mad at her.” She admits. 

“I don’t know her.” I insist. She just shrugs.

“Perhaps you just need reminding.” She says.

“I don’t understand why I haven’t seen her through all of this. Why would Luxu bring the rest of his siblings back and not her, fully?” Traitor or not, Ava was his favorite sister, and the way it’s always been explained to me is that where Ava is now is less than ideal. She must have skulked off to the shadows, a dark realm like the one Aqua spent over a decade in. 

A smile breaks out across Strelitzia’s features, I don’t understand why but she looks at me as though the very sun shines from within me. I actually look around the clearing, trying to find an answer. 

“She was never really gone, Luxu either. I told you Rueki, it’s the heart that matters most and don’t they all share a heart.” She cocks her head to the side.

“No one’s ever really gone.” I reply, but it sounds scathing and I guess I don’t care if she knows I can’t deal with the way the edges of life and death blur anymore. 

“Do you remember Motunui?” She asks.

“Sure, why?”

But I don’t get an answer, more of the pink dandelion fluff clouds my vision, brushes across me. It rushes at me and I hear Strelitzia calling to me but--

But the distinct sound of friction wakes me, when I shoot up from my spot on Elrena’s floor, the room is still quiet.

Light has still not poked through the horizon, but I’m certain it will soon. My body is so accustomed to this strange, early daybreak just as I’m accustomed to nightmares. Such odd conversations with someone I never met must truly be my subconscious reaching, desperate to cling to a future made of light when darkness once tantalized me. There’s no other way I can make sense of the world anymore, it seems.

Someone shifts beside me, instinct tells me it’s Vanitas and he’s going to complain that my stirring woke him from what would surely have been a tentative sleep.

“Are you awake?” Emyd’s voice whispers from beside me and I yank my blankets closer to me, taken aback in my haze that it’s him waking and no one else. 

“Course I am, you know I don’t sleep for shit.” I whisper back, turning to where he’s propped up at the edge of Elrena’s bed, picking apart the edges of a crocheted quilt.

“You didn’t wake up screaming, that’s a bonus.” He offers. I crack a smile, forgetting for a moment about the nights I’d keep the castle awake in the World That Never Was. 

“Well, I didn’t have a nightmare. Just a weird dream.” I explain and through the dark, I can see his silhouette nod.

“What about?” He asks.

“Ugh.” I wrinkle my nose. “You know how I know you’re failing to make small talk with me? You’re talking to me about dreams. I thought we were better friends than that.”

Emyd laughs in a low voice.

“Yeah, you caught me.” He admits in a sheepish whisper. He looks around the room. At Vanitas who has his head buried under his pillow, at Lauriam who has created a cocoon of blankets around himself, at Ludor who snores softly and then Elrena who is sprawled out on her stomach, drooling and looking as unkempt and sweet as I could possibly imagine. With the moon and stars peeking through the windows still, everything Luxu and the rest of the realm did to her is wiped away and I think I see traces of the girl who was determined to help Lauriam find his sister.

“So…” I prompt. He snorts on the driest little laugh.

“I keep dreaming about that woman.” Emyd admits.

“There’s a woman? I thought it was a nymph?” I blink, eyes adjusting a little better.

“Nymphs are women too, Rueki.” Well fuck me. “I’ve seen her a few times in my dreams now, it’s never much. The shape of her body catching in the light or the way her hair looks slicked back from being in the river. She tells me that love and hate are two sides of the same coin and then disappears back into the river, but I just… I know her voice. And I know her silhouette, she’s someone special to me, I think. Do you think anyone’s awake to give me my memories back?”

“Seriously?” I whisper shout. Vanitas grumbles to himself in his sleep. “Like right now?”

“I dunno.” He mumbles, hesitation palpable in his voice. “I think uh...I keep doing stuff cuz I don’t want to get dragged into more trouble, but it just keeps leading me to trouble. Maybe knowing something about my past might actually help me in the future after all.” 

“Dude, you are so preaching to the choir.” I sigh. “If it helps, getting my memories back did wonders.” 

“You can’t miss what isn’t there, though.” He reminds me, soft and wistful, dreamy and musing like the soft trickle of rain down the windows at night. My mouth twists.

“Yeah. That still stands.” I agree. “Did you know I was friends with Lea and Ienzo when I was little?”

“Ienzo said something along the lines.” Emyd confirms.

“I didn’t know that before. And… I knew I was an orphan, but I didn’t know about Cid.” I think.

“He’s going to ground you when this is all over.” Emyd reminds me and I make a small, aggravated noise.

“The point, you dickhead, is that I didn’t realize I missed him, but I didn’t know what it felt like to be loved by a parental figure until him.” I explain. “I didn’t remember drawing on the sidewalk with chalk or reading fairy tales or the first time I ate ice cream and watched the sunset with Lea or meeting Ventus or listening to Isa lecture Lea about being an asshole and realizing that was something neither of them were going to grow out of. I had nothing. For me, that’s a greater loss.”

Which feels so funny, to contemplate thinking that loving and losing is better than to not love at all. Because wasn’t the point of all of this to distance myself from love so I never had to lose again? I curl a hand against my stomach, trying to settle the ice cold knotting that forms inside of me. This was different, I remind myself. And I wouldn’t be encouraging Emyd to chase memories if it wasn’t for the woman sleeping in between he and I, and what I know she deserves. What I want her to have back. Because the mark on my hip burns and I know the one behind her ear must roar with waves that will never reach the shore. 

Twilight, to die under that current is such a cruel death, I’d go up in flames any day.

“Maybe I’ll go poke around and see if the Master is awake, maybe I’ll see if he can just give them to me.” He muses.

“Not Aced?” I ask. “He’s in charge of you, right?”

“Ha, yeah right.” Emyd chuckles. “I’m not a masochist.”

Apparently I am .

“Do you really want all of that on the eve of such a huge battle? Won’t that be distracting?” I ask.

“Would you have wanted it before you met Saix in the throne room? Would it have given you something to fight for?” I realize that’s the last memory he has of me standing off against anyone and possibly one of my most traumatic memories.

But I think of the man attached to them, the eyes that are now cyan rather than gold and I--

Damn. I do have deep and sometimes very negative and surely complex feelings about Isa. But if I were to see him now, if he were to offer me a hand, undoubtedly I would take it.

“Yeah. Yeah it would have.” I nod.

“I’m gonna do it, I think.” He pushes himself up.

“Shit, like now?” I choke.

“Yeah, before I chicken out.” He chuckles and I laugh too.

“Do you want someone with you?” I ask.

“Uh, I think I actually wanna be alone for this one.” He admits.

“Then go and let the rest of us sleep.” Next to me, Vanitas grumbles and Emyd and I are a mess of choked down, stifled giggles. 

“Good luck.” I whisper.

“Thank you.” And with that, Emyd sneaks out the door.

Maybe for the first time since crushing it in my palm, I miss my phone. Absently, I pet Vanitas’ hair, listening to him hum as he starts to fall back asleep. Abruptly he stiffens up, I stop. 

“You okay?” I whisper, he nods rigidly and through our link I realize he is feeling a little too okay. My heart aches. “Want me to stop?”

“No, you're going to do that every night.” He mutters, my heart starts to ache in a very new way. I'm not planning a life around my soulmate, he's not building his future around his other half. But this is the type of consolation prize that doesn't leave a bitter taste in my mouth

Though I would love to call Lea, and the desire gets stronger as Vanitas falls soundly asleep. I would love to have my phone and slip out the window and call Lea, to remind him that this is, was and always will be for him and whether he loves me back or not doesn’t matter. Because I love him, and I want him to know that I hope one day he’ll remember how much.

Maybe it’s better that I can’t though. We’re enemies after all, I’ll see him on the battlefield in only a matter of hours.

So, with that, I toy with Vanitas’ hair until I’m satisfied that he’s dreaming and then I leave, closing the door softly in my absence. 

It’s strange to see the castle so poorly lit. While sunlight usually streams in the windows, at this hour the place is only lit by small lanterns that seem to chase me down the hall, extinguishing upon my departure. I push past the castle doors and look out toward the hill the Master walked me toward months ago, overlooking the ark. I think of dreaming of watching the sunrise with Luxu, holding myself back because I know if I gave him the chance, he’d consume me completely. I guess I never imagined that being so utterly devoured would leave me feeling so used up. I tuck the stray pieces of bangs behind my ear. They’re finally long enough, the pieces Vanitas yanked out in Wonderland have fully regrown.

Strelitzia’s words echo in my head. What I hold tightest I must let go. I know what that is already, dread settles into my stomach when I think of her near confirmation that Lea will not forgive me. Maybe wherever Ava is, her disloyalty is only to the Master, not to those of us following him. Regardless, I take a look at the ark, at the ground work I’ve laid for myself and I know what’s inside will be effective, but if I’m going to have nothing left in my hands by the end of this then--

Then I’m making the future a hell of a lot easier on myself.

The work I do is robotic, is simple. I etch glyphs into the ground and place grenades at the center, sealing them with a quick binding curse. I do this like a chain, linking the battlefield to the ark. All it will take is a little bit of energy to set off the reaction and therefore power the ark, even if I can’t escape the battle long enough to activate it. I’m certain it will work, after all, it’s these same glyphs that cause the reaction that blew off Amaya’s arm. 

When I’m done, I walk into the ark, taking one last, solid look at it. A black box sits in the middle of it and I consider it, head cocked to the side. Strange energy radiates off of it, and my stomach starts to curl as I realize inside that box is most certainly the world’s Keyhole. I look at the locking mechanism on it, seven red locks I count in total and think of how they look strange, like there used to be more but some were removed. This must be the box the Master teased ever so slightly the very first time we played chess. A box with maybe elemental locks, maybe not, but now they’re all locked and I’m at least thankful that I’m on the side that knows how to open them, and in fact, knows that we’ll need to once I take Kairi’s light.

When I head back into the bedroom, Emyd is back. He and Elrena are sleeping soundly, twisted in each other’s arms and my heart burns with satisfaction. If there’s nothing else good in the world, at least these two make it out to the easier side of things.

I climb up into Elrena’s bed, which none of us opted for, deciding there was more solidarity in sleeping huddled together rather than alone. Now though, I think I need to be alone, staring at the ceiling, keeping my breath held and my hopes close to my chest.

Just a couple Hero Drinks and this will be over. Just the light from Kairi’s chest to seal off Daybreak Town and then the Master can take the data that the darkness compressed the worlds we destroyed into, and purge it permanently, rather than just temporarily. These lives we lead can be a memory, the past a nightmare we finally get to wake up from.

That’s a damn good line. I wish I could text it to Lea.

Morning filters in so slowly, my mind begins to throb, my heart screams, begging for a release from the monotony that my thoughts have trapped me in. It filters in too fast, painting the sky in pastels, and I realize, with breath caught in the spiderwebs anxiety has woven in my throat, that I’m never ever going to be ready for this battle.

Lauriam is the first of us up. Like actually up, rising with the sun, basking like a morning glory beside the massive window in Elrena’s room. I kiss Vanitas’ forehead because I know everyone else is asleep and Lauriam is surely not paying attention and I hear Vanitaswhimper in response. This poor, precious person. I scoop my blanket up off the floor, but tuck Vanitas in a little tighter and pad across the floor, feeling the cool brush of hardwood against my bare feet. It’s as deliciously smooth as walking across the floor of mine and Lea’s room, a room I’ll likely never see again. I chew on my lips. This is worth it, it has to be.

“Morning.” I murmur. Lauriam doesn’t look away from the meadow outlooking Elrena’s room.

“Good morning.” He says. “I didn’t realize how nice the view from Elrena’s room was. She’s rarely let me in here, but I...suppose I believed the garden view of mine was the loveliest. But I can see the sunflowers waking from here and the trees, the sun doesn’t seem to glare from this position either. It’s lovely.”

“This whole world is beautiful.” I nod, draping myself across the wall next to him. “Are you ready for today?”

“More than there are words for.” No surprise there. “The Master’s been nothing but adamant about reuniting me with my sister today. He says that he sees no other outcome than us finding each other once more.”

“You’re lucky.” I smile. “One of the first things we learn in alchemy is to gain, we have to lose. It’s cool, finally getting to see you all gain after how much you lost.”

“It was monumental.” Lauriam nods. “You’ve been told, of course, how remarkably you look like Strelitzia, correct?” Lauriam asks and I nod.

“Repeatedly.” I admit, and I try to piece together if he said as much to me previously, but after what we’ve been through, I think those things have slipped through the cracks for both of us. “I’m sorry if that’s hard.” 

“It was at one point.” He nods. “Thinking of the nature of our previous...would you call it, rivalry?”

“That seems a fair word.” I nod.

“However, our kinship has rather reversed those feelings. And if I’m being completely frank, more and more every day, you remind me of her. You’re remarkably similar in your…”

“Ability to make bad choices? Need to disassociate? Self destructive tendencies?” I offer, because really, isn’t that what everyone identifies with ‘Rueki’ nowadays?

“I was thinking in your magic prowess and your unyielding softness. You’re quite tender, has anyone ever told you that?” He asks. I color.

“Only to tell me I’m being weak. Only to make me feel stupid for being human or letting the war effect me.” I admit.

“Your heart quite obviously dangles from your sleeve, of course you couldn’t stomach the wars. You’ve got a gentle heart, Rueki, but that does not equate to weakness and anyone who fathoms it that way is unintelligent and hardly worth wasting time with.” He tells me. I bite my lips, our eyes find each other and I take a seat beside him.

“I really believed for a long time that being emotional was a sign of weakness. And then I met Axel and obviously that got cast aside cuz I was a mess of emotions. So then I started thinking I could be receptive to others because as long as I was just dealing with their emotions and not mine, I was fine, I could maintain autonomy. It’s been such a downward slope, and I have a lot to work out with codependency and...PTSD. Probably. But maybe it’s time I do something like that...maybe I should consider that strength doesn’t look how I thought it did.”

“Do you consider the petals of a flower weak for fluttering off in a storm?” He asks. “Or are the stems strong for staying rooted?”

“That might be the realest thing I’ve ever heard.” I say.

A knock sounds off at the door. I know who it is immediately, I twist, gaze falling on the Master’s hooded form from the now open door.

“Morning Lauriam. Morning sugar. It’s time.” He tells me. I steal one last glance, one last tired smile is exchanged with Lauriam, and then, I rise.


	58. Chapter 58

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! Just an FYI we'll have a new chapter of Tempest up on Friday that corresponds with this chapter because basically I feel like it's really important you read this chapter first. A lot of stuff that might leave you confused will be explained in that chapter, but that's all I'm gonna say!

LVII.

This time, when the world ends, there’s no one I want to say goodbye to. I’ve done that in whispers, a million times over.

I rub my hands together in the cold, sterile air of a Daybreak Town morning. I lick my lips, I sift hands through my hair and feel strands get stuck and pulled out in the cracks between the metal. It hurts, but if I don’t keep busy, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my eyes trained to the sky, watching for a ship I would’ve piloted, that I might be panicking inside of right now, one hand wrapped up in one belonging to the man I want to be standing beside. 

Instead, the person I want to be around least sets a hand on the small of my back, like my breaking up at him was the sad, easily forgotten protest of a child too petulant to eat its vegetables.

“You hanging in there, squirt?” He asks me, lips at my ear like he truly thinks I still want him there, like I still want the heat of his body too close to me. 

“Go to hell.” I say under my breath, not in show, not in the swooping way I begged him to take me back and professed love I wanted so bad to feel.

“Oh, so you’re jonesing.” I can hear the smirk in his voice, though I can’t see Luxu’s grin. He’s right, I am. High on sleep deprivation, I’m reminded how much better it feels to be trapped in delirium on light, drunk on the pulsation beneath my veins of weightless, painless magic. Beneath my skin, I itch hot and deep, almost enough to ask for a hit, but I want so bad not to ever be indebted to this man, when this chapter ends. Besides, I’ve found solidarity.

“Piss. Off.” Vanitas says, between punctuated breaths, in a voice like rubble. Maybe because of last night’s soft spoken conversation about understanding the beauty of being cared for. Maybe because he hates Luxu that much. But regardless, it makes Luxu snort, soft and derogatory in my ear, sending chills up my spine. Ludor’s fingers lace through mine. He gives me a gentle squeeze, Elrena cuts away from Lauriam to stand directly behind me, bumping Luxu way too hard with her hip.

“You heard the kid.” Elrena says, her lips pressed when I turn around.

The last time I felt this tense, this tightly wound around a coil, I had just gotten engaged the night before. The night before this, I broke up with my lover, fucked someone I have no romantic inclination for and all the while wished there was a way to push together the pieces of what I still feel versus what my husband still wants. If this was my best effort for keeping myself together, then I’m somehow even more of a dumpster fire than I ever expected.

“Hey, hey. We’re all in this together, aren’t we?” The Master asks.

“And it can’t be over soon enough.” Aced growls. The Master heaves a sigh, I turn to him, and the blackness beneath his hood and I nod.

“We are all in this together.” I agree with the Master.

“Good girl.” He says, and it flows straight into my heart, like once again, despite being a dumpster fire, I’m somehow enough. 

We watch the sky ping, someone breaks down the barrier that wraps around this world, the heavens part, the clouds pushing themselves away through the pastel sky. Tears prickle at the edges of my eyes, so I release Ludor’s hand and hold onto my own arms.

“Are you quite alright, love?” He asks me and I nod.

“I will be.” I assure him.

“We can go back to Shibuya when this is all done.” He promises me.

“Or Midgar.” Elrena says behind me. My heart surges. I can’t warm my heart, but oh, the rest of the realm surely can. I nod. No matter what happens today, even if Lea will turn his back on me for eternity, it’ll be worth it, just to walk on air and need no one, selecting only the friends that I want, to remain by my side. I steal a glance at Vanitas, whose face is unreadable. Being at his side, scrambling in the darkness at the edges, that’ll more than suffice.

The ship lands rough and shaky, I’m almost sick. The doors open and the first thing I see is red. Violent, vibrant red. Kairi and Lea find their way out, shoulders squared, looking almost comical with how tiny she is compared to him. Skuld and Aqua come in directly behind them, then Isa and Del. The others follow. Sora, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Riku, Terra, Ventus, Roxas, Xion and even, to my surprise, Naminé.

I’m not sure why she’s here. Maybe to appeal to me, which, fat chance. Maybe because like Isa, Del and I, she was granted a Keyblade by the realm as a sort of after thought, but it doesn’t matter. 

“You know, this doesn’t have to go how you think it’s going to.” The Master says, to no one and every one in particular. There’s a collective shifting amongst the group facing us.

“It does as long as you want to throw off the balance of the realm.” Mickey replies, exercising, as always, every bit the nobility of a king. Like it doesn’t matter that Yen Sid, his mentor, would risk the lives of children in order to forward his own agenda. 

“Balance is fickle and indecisive. It wasn’t long ago that all of you fought for the light.” I snap, finding my voice somehow, despite it all. Lea looks right at me, like nothing else in this world exists, like my voice animates and inspires him, because he takes a step forward and I almost fold like a house of cards. Oh Twilight, I think, come to my side. If he strides across now and takes my hands in his then I will know nothing of fear or doubt or loss. I find myself moving forward, unconsciously, as though our insides are connected by a string. Maybe the soul we share just aches that bad. He’s not wearing his ring anymore though, I bite my tongue inside my mouth until I taste the metallic tang of my blood, like the war is already waging inside of me. But I know better than to think it ever stopped. 

“Because the darkness didn’t balance.” Lea says, and I think he sounds nobler than ever, that he’s more the hero he’s strived to be than ever before. Surely, he’s more beautiful than he’s ever been. 

“Besides, as long as you have Rueki, we’ll fight for her.” Roxas says, he summons his blade, the first of all of us. How fitting, I think, the boy never did learn self discipline, but he learned a lack of it from the best. From me. This familiarity has always burned, but today, it tastes like bile.

“Well, it’s funny that you mention that.” Luxu chuckles, setting a hand on my hip, coming on me like prey, so I jerk away, putting myself directly in front of Vanitas, almost in front of the Master.

“Because you have someone we want to fight to bring home.” Gula says, and I make a face clear surprise painting my features. Ava, I think, but I also know they don’t have her, so maybe Skuld or Ventus?

“Don’t.” Naminé orders, like she’s somehow found her voice too. Those too clear blue eyes find mine, like all I’ve ever done is let her down, when all I’ve really ever done is broken my own back to meet her expectations.

“Come home. This has gone on too long.” The Master says. I wait for Skuld to step forward, head high, smugness on her face as she takes regal pride in ruining my entire life. But Skuld doesn’t come forward. She doesn’t take the type of haughty, commanding steps I expect from her.

Powder blue sandals close the distance, treating the cobblestones like a minefield. Naminé pulls the pink shall she dons tighter over her shoulders. And I go back to dreams of Sterlitiza in white, talking to a girl in pink with a voice so ethereal and committed to my memory, but only the edges, never to be placed. I think of Naminé, curled in tight around Kairi’s heart, begging her to stay alive. I think of the foxes in the chamber in her heart, of her waking when I told her ‘may your heart be your guiding key’, of the stories she told me about the world past, of the times of the age of fairy tales like she was just remembering the stories Kairi’s grandmother told. I think of Luxu’s chronic body hopping and of Sora standing opposite her in Castle Oblivion, listening to her grieve how she’d been alone for so long, despite only having been blinked into existence weeks before. I think of the empathy link, of her expectations of me, of the voice she finally found. Of the pink haze that surrounded Strelitiza and I in my dreams, so much like eraser being scrubbed off from an artist’s pencil.

My mouth goes dry. I really start crying, the tears are hot as they burn down my cheeks.

“No.” I beg.

“I’m sorry.” Naminé says to me, only me. 

“You don’t have to be sorry, Ava. Just come home.” Luxu urges and I would hit the ground, were someone not keeping me upright. Vanitas single handedly keeps me on my feet and I back into him, wanting to wrap my arms around him, wanting him to keep me at ease in ways he doesn’t know how to.

“You-- you used me!” I shout. My eyes are wild, my face goes hot as finally the puzzle comes together. This is the ugly truth, this is me hating where Ava hides. Because she must have been lurking inside the brightest source she could find, chasing after her brother, diving into Kairi’s heart the second Luxu stole Braig’s consciousness. The two constantly treat me like the human equivalent to tug of war. 

I think Lea sees me dying a thousand deaths. I think I see pain in his eyes as tears spill down my cheeks, onto my collar bones.

“Stay on your feet, don’t let them see you weak.” Vanitas whispers, with hands on my arms, or maybe his heart just says it loud enough that I feel it word for word. And maybe I can stay on my feet, but I can’t stop the hurricane of words that pour out of me.

“How dare you, how the fuck dare you, was anything real or were you just using me to get back at being the fucking loose ends of the family? How dare you rip me apart and fucking put this link in me just to break me, just so I have to feel everyone else’s pain, so that my heart is an open wound your family can prod at. You used me, you made me your spy and when I didn’t comply, you turned my soulmate and everyone I loved one me!” My voice raises into hysterics, I can’t catch a breath, but each word rushes out with more urgency than the last. 

“Lady Ava.” I hear Lauriam behind me. Elrena chokes, Emyd verbally tries to piece it altogether, Vanitas keeps a hold on me and in my eyes, Lea watches the sudden death of my morality. Maybe his heart breaks. I can’t even pretend I know a damn thing anymore.

“Yes.” Naminé or Ava, rather, finally confesses, and those goddamn hot tears are burning down my cheeks. “Yes, I--. I used you entirely to forward my agenda, knowing full well it would break Luxu down for you to turn against him. I hoped it would be enough to turn him around. I really truly wished my favorite brother loved you enough to follow you into the twilight. I still don’t know where it all went wrong.” 

“It went wrong because of you! I would have killed myself because of the darkness you poured into me, if it wasn’t for him--” I jut a hand at Lea and we all know I would be gone and a figment of the past without him. My vision turns bleary, I force myself to blink it all away.

“You were supposed to be able to handle it. Luxu was never supposed to get ahold of Skuld.” Naminé-- Ava shakes her head.

“Oh, but I did. That’s the thing about walking away from the side with the know how, isn’t it, Ava? You’re left guessing. Fumbling in the dark.” Luxu taunts, taking a step forward. I watch something burn, something primal comes to life in Lea’s eyes, he takes his Keyblade and hurls it, whipping it straight toward Luxu’s head. But Luxu’s too quick, like a reflex, he parts, leaving those behind him to scramble until somewhere behind all of us, the blade clatters to cobblestone. “Early arrival a problem for you, Flamesilocks.”

“I just don’t know why the hell this matters. Enough with the talking, you guys are all supposed to be big and bad, why don’t you show us what you’re made of?” Lea demands. Ava’s face goes red.

“Lea, no.” She pleads. “There’s so much none of them understand.”

“Like what, how you hopped bodies for lifetimes like I did? How you followed me to Radiant Garden and hung out in some old lady’s body until the world ended and then you jumped ship into her granddaughter’s heart until she spit out a Nobody and you finally got a vessel all your own? I mean, as if a Princess of Heart could create a true being of darkness. All it was was your corrupted light, blank, empty and manifested. That thing that was her Nobody wouldn’t have even taken on a form different than a replica if you hadn’t filled it up. So then you used Sora to use Rueki, to screw with everyone in between so you could foil our plans. Sound about right?” Luxu asks. Ava’s hands curl into fists, behind her Skuld steps forward.

“Lady Ava’s only commitment has ever been to humanity.” Skuld insists. Which means she already knew, which means they all did and I wonder for how long, how long was this kept from me?

“To the downfall of the greater good.” The Master sighs. “C’mon Ava. You know what comes next, are you really going to make me do it?” He asks. Ava’s answer is a puffed chest and a face that dares him. “Fine, we’ll take the source you’ve been guarding.”

Right, I recall from one of those early chess matches with the Master. Ava’s protecting a light source, protecting Kairi.

“You can’t have him.” Ava says and suddenly I’m thrown again. Him? “Didn’t you do enough, giving him life? You put him in a body just so you could watch over him, you’ve no idea what I’ve had to do to his memories to keep him from falling apart.”

Something hits me like a ton of bricks.

I can think of two boys that lack in memories, and only one of them is a source of light. 

I look at Vanitas, searching his face. But the second I know, he does too. He takes on the look of a predator, smile curling across his lips, hell in his eyes.

“You heard the Master. Time to come home, Venty Wenty.” Vanitas goes to take a step forward, I think I should stop him because Aqua draws her blade and Ventus gasps, leaping back, but the look of horror on Ava’s face stills me. Anything she could possibly fathom to be good, is not and never will be.

“Not exactly.” The Master sighs. “This one’s gonna get a little messier.”

“What?” Vanitas balks.

“Please don’t.” Ava begs.

“Well how else am I going to rain a seal of light across the realm and weed out all those pesky little traces of darkness? You really think I can do that without the very first light, himself? C’mon Ava, we’re made of him. It’ll be like a father finally coming home.” The Master insists. 

“What do you want with me?” Ven demands and I’m sure he’s mustering all of the courage he’s capable of, but I’m still squeezing the empathy link so tight, I don’t want to know. Ventus is not a source of light, he’s the source of light. The thing from which all light originates and that spells out a possibility that starts to twist a nervous coil inside my stomach.

“Sugar, you think you got an extraction in you?” The Master asks.

“Try it, I won’t allow you near him!” Aqua snaps, which almost calls me to the challenge. Almost.

“Rueki, this isn’t like the princesses you’ve encountered, Ventus is the very essence of light, captured by the Master of Masters. If you extract him, there will be nothing left of his vessel, he’ll die!” Ava cries out and around me, the world goes mute. Tunnel vision clouds the edges of my eyes, it’s all I can do to still my thoughts, it’s all I can do to silence my mind as I see the Master turn to look expectantly at me. My pulse is so loud, I can’t hear what Ven cries to me, but I imagine he pleads. I imagine he begs for his life, I imagine he’s thinking of the time we spent in Scala ad Caelum, like children on a glorious adventure, feeling maybe the last bits of bliss I have in my life.

I think of the boy I loved first, of my Prince Charming who would take me off to worlds unknown. It all makes sense, the way I was drawn to light, even then. The way he shone so beautifully on me.

“If you want me to have the energy to extract Kairi’s light and ignite the ark, I won’t be able to muster this extraction.” I say the words quickly and quietly, they fly out of my mouth soft and condemning. Aqua’s eyes go soft for just a second, Ventus breathes a sigh of relief. But Ava’s hand touches her heart and somewhere, somehow, in mine, I feel it breaking. “I’m sorry.” To myself, to the Master, I don’t know. But he merely claps a hand on my shoulder.

“There are other ways, I foresaw this.” He assures me. “Lauriam, would you like to hear the truth about your sister’s demise?”

“No.” Vanitas chokes. I grab his hand with all my might and squeeze. Fear has him gripping his Keyblade and me like a vice. 

“The truth…” Lauriam repeats, Ava’s eyes widen.

“Don’t, don’t you dare!” Ava demands. 

“Ventus struck down Strelitzia while she sought out Ludor.” The Master’s voice is even, calculated, blithe. 

“He didn’t, he wouldn’t!” Aqua roars.

“He hunted her down, he killed her in cold blood and took her rule book as a trophy.” The Master twists, cocking his shrouded head toward Lauriam. “Lauriam, I was the one who made that list. I’d know whose name was on it. And your sister’s was at the very top, Ventus’ wasn’t there at all.”

Lauriam’s face is drained of color, but his mouth isn’t parted, his eyes don’t bulge. Beyond his ashenness, there are no telling signs that he has been gutted. It makes it all the more eerie when he takes a long step toward Ventus, hand held out.

“We were friends, were we not?” Lauriam asks.

“We were, of course!” Ventus cries.

“Then why would you keep this from me?” Lauriam’s voice is low and sickly sweet, ripe with decay. If I weren’t gripping my empathy link with both hands, I know I’d feel Ven’s pulse hammering, his thoughts racing, because even mine are. And each time Vanitas squeezes my hand tighter, the more alive and simultaneously fearful I become. I know what’s going to come, I know what has to come and I tell myself that long ago I decided which of my old friends I could lose and remain sane and Ventus was on that list but I--

I don’t want to watch it.

“I--I don’t remember--I can’t remember anything of why I would have.” Ventus shakes his head, tears springing at the edges of his vision.

“But you did.” Lauriam breathes. Ventus’ tears rain down onto the cobblestone.

“I’m sorry.” Ventus chokes.

“No!” Vanitas demands and I make a move in front of him, wrapping my other hand around my forearm. 

“Do not fear, old friend.” Lauriam says in a voice like honey, a voice I know better than to trust. I move my metal arm from Vanitas’ forearm to his waist, clutching him with inhuman force. I pinch my eyes shut. “I will make this right for us all.”

I hear the scraping pop of teleportation, hear a ringing and a thud. Someone--I think Aqua-- screams. Vanitas howls, I grab the back of his head with my flesh hand, leaning on my toes to press it to my shoulder, willing him to avert his eyes, to not look, to under no circumstance watch.

The wet, smacking sound of a bleeding corpse hitting the ground fills the air. Vanitas tears out of my arms, I whip and scream a binding curse, trapping him mid stride, not chancing the empathy link, only so that we both come face to face with the grotesque sight of Lauriam’s lifeless body atop a replica whose light slowly, slowly floods into Lauriam’s Keyblade.

Aqua stands over the mess, rage brimming in the tears in her eyes.

It doesn’t matter that I’m not responsible, her gaze finds me and I know I will be made to pay the price.

Terra chokes, Sora hits the ground, Del rushes their bodies, Elrena wails and Vanitas...he sobs. He can’t control any of it, the noise he emits is inhuman, and finally, as though he has fallen overboard, the tears begin to fall.

“Let me go, let me go goddammit!” He screams at me, though he can’t so much as turn his head.

I take steps toward him and wrap my arms around his body, forcing it like some sort of doll, into a neutral position. I take his hands into mine and squeeze.

“It hurts!” He roars.

“I know.” And I do. I feel a miserable, aching shriek in Vanitas’ heart, no matter how I try to close it off. For the first time ever, it is entirely shadow, no light lingers at the corner, no hope is a prospect, the fragility of shooting light like a drug has broken him clean in two and the half that would complete him, the half that would revive him--

Grotesquely, I force myself to look at the scene once more. Lauriam’s Keyblade beams, bright and radiant. And the replica? There’s no trace of Ventus left in it.

No trace of the light, no trace of Prince Charming. My eyes start to burn and I tell myself this is the worst of it, that the rest will be easy, that anything more I can handle.

“You don’t, though.” Aqua’s voice comes low and gravely. My brow comes together as I look at her. “You don’t know what it feels like to hurt, but you will.” She comes sailing across the divide, straight over what once was Ventus, over what once was Lauriam and my survival instincts kick in when nothing else will.

“Graviga!” I aim straight for the cobblestones and they rumble, low and deafening as they sink in, creating a chasm too massive for her to cross. She leaps back, my heart catches in my chest, the binding curse wears off and Vanitas screams as he hits the ground, smashing a fist into it. He whirls, head snapping until he looks like some sort of hanged man and not a human being anymore. And I wonder--

Is he? Was he ever? If Ventus was the embodiment of light then… Is Vanitas the darkness?

“You!” Vanitas hisses, nostrils flaring, eyes widening dangerously as he looks up at the Master of Masters. “You took him, you carved him out of me, you--”

“Don’t be a child. You’re no more human than he is. You should be happy. Now you don’t have to chase your other half anymore. You get to share him with the realm.” The Master says.

“I’ll gut you!” Vanitas whips around, making a move to leap at the Master, but as quickly as I acted with Aqua, I hook my inhuman arm around Vanitas, yanking him in tight. “Let me go, let me go, I’ll kill him!”

“Van, no!” I demand. “This is for us, remember? Ventus died for us, so that we could survive in this realm, remember? People like you and I, we need the light constantly and he’ll give us that!” 

“How dare you!?” Terra roars.

“She’s treacherous. That’s how.” Aqua hisses.

“No, what she is, is right. Your friend was never human at all, it wouldn’t be fair for you to hog the light. In fact…” The Master holds out his hand and zings Lauriam’s Keyblade into his hands. “I’ll be taking this.” He holds the blade up into the air and sighs. “You know, each and every one of these Keyblades originated from my own. Each and every one of you are capable because of what I did. You should try a little harder to be thankful.”

“Why would we ever be thankful for what you’ve done?” Sora shouts.

“You’re destroying the realm!” Mickey insists.

“Oh no, I’m fixing it. Actually…” With a burst of whiteness, the light leaves Lauriam’s Keyblade and washes over all of us, over every single one of us and somehow, I feel it wash past us, wash everywhere, spill across the remaining worlds and ease the ailing. Vanitas relaxes in my arms, my own shoulders slump, the healing is pure delight and I am all the better for it. “I’ve fixed it.” The Master says then turns to me. “How about we finish this, sugar, hmm? Just like I promised.”

“Yes.” I agree. Exactly like he promised, so easy it’s almost painful. I take one look at Kairi, at where she stands beside Sora and for a moment, just a moment, I loosen my hold on the empathy link, ignore the surge of agony that floods through it and compel Sora to shove her forward, toward the divide.

Kairi screams, but my best air spell sends her sailing over the divide and knocks her onto her knees, right at my feet. Vanitas quivers beside me, I release him and take a long step toward her. She looks up at me and not for the first time, I see pure horror in her eyes.

But certainly, for the first time, I do not feel guilty on account of it. I don’t think of making pizza in her kitchen or watching sappy romcoms or holding each other in my bed at Cid’s. I look down and think of the broken promise of a girl who offered me her light, light I deserved. I think of the way she looked me in the eye as Xemnas took her away and how she swore everything would be alright. I look at the person who has treated me like a caged animal since she came back to my life, at the person who acts like for even a second she understands my hurt.

I call Backbiter to my hand and despite the screams I hear from across the divide, I raise it, forcing her to hold my stare.

“I told you I’d take it.” I remind her.

“This isn’t you, we were friends.” She pleads one last time, desperation causing her throat to bob, her face to color

“You’re right. We were.” I agree. And that makes it all the more satisfying when I raise the heel of my boot, kick her shoulder and knock her straight onto her back. Sora screams for her, someone screams at me, I ignore it and press my boot down into her shoulder and aim my Keyblade straight for her heart. But when I go to feel for the light, I come up empty. My eyes widen, despite her powerlessness, she grins up at me, mischief colors her eyes.

“Good luck with that light.” She leers and I feel my cheeks go cold.

“What the fuck did you do?” I snap. My leg goes slack, Kairi wraps a hand around my ankle and does what I’d done to her so many times. She grabs me and throws me onto my back, knocking the wind out of me, sending my Keyblade clattering to the ground. But she doesn’t get up, she lays beside me and despite the absence of light, despite what used to keep her heart open and pure and forgiving, she looks at me with an optimism I’m still incapable of mirroring.

“I put it where it’s safe. I put it with someone who will defend it with their life.” She says. I push myself to my feet, she pushes herself up, still winded by the force of my air spell. 

“What the fuck did you do to it, Kairi?” I scream. “Who did you give it to?”

“Rueki.” Del’s voice sounds off from across the divide. I look up, eyes finding him as he takes slow, deliberate steps forward.

“Del, don’t!” Aqua pleads, but he smiles sadly at her.

“No, it’s fine. Kairi’s right. Rueki’s going to have to kill me if she wants this. If she wants my light.” He says, and all at once, my insides fall out of me. The high inflicted by the light leaves and every last emotion I have ever felt is replaced by white, hot rage. Scalding betrayal. 

“You didn’t.” My voice dips down low. Kairi’s eyes go wide, she springs back, her footing is weak. I call Backbiter back to my hands just as she calls her Keyblade forward and with a deafening, thunderous clang, our swords devour each other.

She wasn’t a match for me before and she’s certainly not now when one of my arms is all brutality and violence and cold justice. I knock her Keyblade straight out of her hands, she fumbles for it and I bat it into the divide as she cries out. Through her thin skin, I swear I can watch a plain, ordinary heart leap up into her throat. She leaps for the divide but I dart a leg out and knock hers out from beneath her.

Just as quickly as she rose, she falls. On her hands and knees again,I kick her once more on the same shoulder I pressed into before. She backs up, palms pressing into the cobblestone until there’s no more give. She turns back to look at the divide beneath her, at the massive chasm and I think finally understands that she has nowhere else to turn but to me.

“Can’t you please just listen?” She begs.

“I’m done listening!” I snap. “Del, Kairi!” Del, who I protected, Del who I tried to keep far way from the monstrosity that this realm is capable of, Del who is so pure and noble without a fucking target being painted on his heart. Del who has a daughter and is still so much a child himself. Del who should be safe and warm and ignorant to all of this along with Amaya and would have been if it weren’t for Xemnas’ desperation to turn me into a martyr. Del...the boy who thought I was an alien in a broom closet. Hot, angry tears start to bubble and burn like acid at the edges of my vision. “How could you?” I shriek and my teeth click together, my heart hammers so loud I hear nothing over the pounding of blood in my temples.

“It’s not some sort of gift I gave to anyone but you!” She swears, but I just scoff, dry and humorless, shaking my head back.

“No.” I agree. “It’s something you cursed someone who should never have been part of this, with.” I look back down to her, shoulders heaving, hands shaking. “We were friends.” And she knew the deepest, most intimate way to hurt me and took it upon herself to act accordingly.

“We still are! Open your damn eyes!” She screams, punching the cobblestones. But my heart is dry, tapped out like a well. I think I see clearer than ever.

It’s with a shuddering body that I hear the footsteps approach. The gentle, assured footfall of leather boots is too familiar to my ears, I don’t even turn to look at who they could possibly belong to. A leather gloved hand curls around my shoulder, having no fear of the animal I have become, taking possession of the raw, untapped instinct of all that I am.

“I think her eyes are open wide, aren’t they, sugar?” The Master asks. “After all of this, you’ve learned so much better than to make these half hearted little attempts to sacrifice yourself for people who won’t appreciate it anyway, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” I hiss, low and guttural. I’ve learned nothing more that these twisted moralities are what is breaking the realm apart.

“It’s been a fun game, Ava. But you feel it, don’t you?” The Master asks. I don’t even look up toward Naminé, my eyes fix on Kairi, zero in like a scope, at the terror she must feel and I’m certain it’s nothing on all the hell I’ve been dragged through, constantly, repeatedly, by people who tell me they love me when all I’ve ever held are the kindest of intentions. “I know you do. Her conflict is gone. Where there was pain, now there is clarity. Where there was struggle is now resolve. She burns harder than ever for the revenge she deserves and soon, she’ll burn down everything left of the wickedness this realm has become.”

Someone calls my name, I’ve utterly stopped placing voices.

“And you do deserve your reward, don’t you, sugar?” The Master asks. I can’t answer, I can’t process pleasure when I have become teeth and talons and the blade of a knife. “So take it. Kill her.”

There’s a jolt that goes through my body. There’s so much noise, Kairi protests, Kairi begs for her life, but lost in the commotion, I see only her indigo eyes and how bright they shine with nothing to light her heart. I see in their reflection how mine will never shine that way again. 

“Kill her.” The Master urges. “And all of them. And create the realm anew with no traces of what held you down and stabbed you in the back. In this new realm, you’ll only be a hero, there will be no one to whisper even a hint of doubt of the way the Alchemist fixed a realm made of darkness and replaced it with something pure.”

I’m not sure my heart is in my chest any longer, but I don’t know nor care where it beats. My head is an empty, aching, hollow mess, but I clear it. I force it perfectly blank and empty in ways that only I can and I focus on one thing.

My Keyblade in my hand. I turn, bracing myself with one hand against the Master’s sternum. He’s right. There’s no more time to make half hearted sacrifices. So I don’t waste time in considering my enemy. I long for my weapon’s weight in my hand, I savor it, I grip it with all the power I am capable of. With my metal hand, I tilt my blade against Kairi’s chin, demanding her eyes on me once more.

There is resolve. And I am going to get every last thing I deserve.

The blade pierces flesh, my enemy chokes, their hands shake, their body convulses. No one screams, no one cries out, the air goes sterile as the weight of my actions flood each and every one of us like a tsunami. My enemy wheezes, my enemy gasps.

In my mind, I hear Moana’s voice--they have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you.

My enemy hits the ground and his heart evaporates into inky, black dust. After all, it’s the heart that matters most. I don’t have to be stronger than my enemy, just faster.

The Master of Masters goes limp on the ground. 

Backbiter is angled at Kairi’s throat still, but Flame Liberator has taken a new home in my hands and drips with the red blood and corrupted light from a heart now released back into Kingdom Hearts. His body disintegrates.

I look at Kairi’s eyes now shining with tears. Her freckled face is red hot.

“I love you.” I tell her. “Everything’s going to be alright.” I look up one more time, I look at Lea’s eyes one more time, the purest shade of emerald green I’ve ever seen. “I’m sorry.” I tell him.

And then I close my eyes and wait for inevitable death.


	59. Chapter 59

LVIII.

Alone the alchemist will stand, and in the twilight hear the call.   
To meet the light’s endless demand or in the darkness watch them fall.   
They seal the realm in eternal sleep, binding promises still to keep.   
The Sigil’s plan, a final turn. If darkness stands, let it burn

I wait lifetimes for death that I know will come. With my eyes shut and my breath held, the world rotates endlessly and I grow old and tired long before a blade pierces me straight through.

I wait seconds, and a metallic bang like a gong bites behind me. Something cuts through the air, someone’s arms wrap around my waist and all of a sudden I’m falling and I--

I don’t stop holy shit!

My eyes fly wide open just as I hit a jarring stop, but I have no idea how I’m not freefalling still... That is, until I look at my chest, which is ensnared by a pair of fair, freckled legs. I look up at Kairi who is grunting, her Keyblade jammed into the dirt in awall in the chasm, her arms shaking and straining to keep us stationary.

“Kai--” I choke.

“Fucking idiot!” She screams. I think that translates into help her, so I grip her legs.

“This is gonna feel real weird, I promise it’ll feel normal when we touch ground.” I warn her. “Zero graviga!”

“Oh!” Kairi’s eyes fly wide as we start to float. The sheer lack of friction helps her pull her Keyblade free and I am thoroughly impressed by her reflexes, tackling me and recalling her Keyblade from the chasm in fractions of a second. Someone has finally been training this girl. I call off my spell as we hit the ground on the side of the chasm that is still too shocked to murder me, as I watch Ludor, Elrena, Vanitas and Emyd struggle against Aced, Invi, Ira and Gula. Luxu looks right at me, gaze like a knife. I grab Kairi’s arm from where we sit on the cobblestones. “I can’t believe you thought you were going to sacrifice yourself, you dumb asshole! I think I at least deserve to beat the hell out of you before you go off and fucking die!” Kairi screams.

“Kai, come on, it’s not the time, we can still get out of here.” Riku insists, but I shake my head.

“You don’t get a say in this anymore, Rueki, we’ve lost enough because of you!” Aqua snarls.

“Then you guys can leave, no one’s making you stay.” I push myself up, away from Kairi and roll my shoulders back. “I need to finish this.”

“Come on, Rueki, seriously, I gave a really heroic speech, you can’t just take my light and--” Del begins, but I shoot him a scathing look.

“Calm down, Princess. It’s not that.” I say. “The Foretellers aren’t going to die easy.”

“That’s correct.” Ava agrees and I turn to her, almost disoriented that Namine’s face still remains the same. The betrayal doesn’t stop stinging, never ceases to feel like a poison in my veins, so I turn from her.

“What do we have to do?” Sora asks, quick on the draw. 

“We have to kill them all.” Ava says. “Every last one of them. Or the survivors will do as Luxu did and revive them all when Kingdom Hearts is summoned again. And it will be again, before the day is done.”

“How did you kill them, though?” Skuld asks, quicker to accept the logical hand of things and at least temporarily ignore the fact that I played into everything she warned me about in the first place.

And the fact of the matter is, I still don’t think I can live in a realm made of light and dark. But my eyes really are open wide. And my sense of duty outweighs it all. 

“Get them in the heart.” I answer.

“Yes.” Ava agrees. “A Keyblade is a truly marvelous, dual purposed weapon. You pierce an enemy straight through the heart and you unlock their heart from their body. You send it back to Kingdom Hearts.”

“And what happens then?” Xion asks.

“Then we bring enough darkness into the realm to blur the lines where the realm of light and dark once used to converge. And once it does, the worlds collapsed will be restored by the essence of light…” Ava trails off. “By Ventus.”

“Alright…” I hear Skuld agree and she stands tall and proud. Slowly, they all right themselves, they all tilt their heads up, they all take a breath and decide to ink out one more battle.

I look behind me at Lea, whose mouth is parted, whose eyes swirl with thoughts I can’t even try to decipher.

We’re enemies now, I think. This changes nothing in his eyes. And then I force my stare away from him though my heart and hope still rest thoroughly in his hands.

“Rueki.” He says my name and my heart grows physically sore. ”Can I have my Keyblade back?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” I extend his sword back to him, looking away. Lea takes a step forward, his fingers brush the knuckles of my flesh hand as he takes his sword, my nerve endings zing exactly like when he marked me. I look up, his eyes are locked onto mine. I want to look away.

“I um…” He starts but I shake my head.

“You don't need to.” Ventus is still dead, Lauriam is still dead. He rubs the back of his neck and finally sighs, massively.

“We sure have a lot to talk about when this is done.” He draws and just like that, hope reignites. My chest is tight with excitement instead of anxiety, my head buzzes with promises instead of restrictions. Just like that, my heart comes back to life and beats entirely for him. With renewed strength, I turn to the chasm. 

“Alright.” I agree. “Waterza!” I pelt water straight into the chasm until it fills to the brim, until it spills over the edge and then I wave a hand. “Blizzaza!” As quickly as it filled, it turns into a sheet of ice, into miserable but traversable terrain. And without hesitation, I storm it.

Like clockwork, my foot touches the other end of the chasm and masked faces turn my way. I grip Backbiter like a vice. I cock my head to the side and offer a grin.

“You all go down as easily as your Master or did old age get the better of him?” I ask. The taunt is gasoline on wildfire. Aced roars, but to my lack of surprise, Luxu is the first one on me. He moves maybe faster than the speed of light, because I blink and suddenly he’s right in front of me, and I have to dodge his Keyblade by leaping high into the air. He whirls his Keyblade around and with the flat of the blade, smacks me so hard in the chest that I land on my back, abdomen seizing.

He jabs his Keyblade down toward my stomach when a ray of lightning grabs him by the wrist and jerks it back. Luxu howls, shaking off the bite only for a tidal wave to knock him over, narrowly leaving me enough time to roll away. I rise to my knees, Elrena shoots me a wink, Emyd heaves a breath.

“Well today’s already proving to be a real pain in the butt.” He gripes. Elrena cackles.

“Are you kidding me?” She asks. “This is the most fun I’ve had in months.” She looks back to Aced, who is now clashing blades with Ludor, and grins. “Come on, water boy, let's teach your union leader that payback’s a bitch.” 

Lea grabs me by the top of my arm, my heart stills a little as he hoists me up.

“You didn’t need to.” I tell him, as we watch Luxu start to rise.

“Oh, I know. But I’m calling dibs on him now, sweetheart.” Lea assures me. 

“As if.” Luxu rolls his visible eye. “You two wanna play hard, let’s play.”

We dive straight in, puddles kicking up in our footfalls. I use remnants to shoot up a spike of water toward Luxu, which he easily dodges but that means he has all the more trouble swerving away from the firetooth that Lea knocks straight toward him. The spell is brutal in the worst of ways, chasing after Luxu, and any less adept opponent would be rendered incapable. But Luxu truly is superhuman, flipping every which plane, sensing exactly where in space he needs to move until--

Until he appears right behind Lea, blade ready to put straight through his spine.

“No!” I scream and throw myself in their direction, when some sort of massive, bear like creature plows into Luxu and knocks him back, towards the icy divide.

“What the hell?” He barks, but turns his Keyblade into his arrow guns and pierces straight through the creature. Someone grunts like they’re in pain, as he does. That someone is Vanitas. My eyes flash, my heart leaps.

“Hey!” Vanitas demands. “Keep your shit together.”

“Fuck off!” I tell him, without a hint of malice and turn back to Lea as Luxu comes fighting back. “We need a better plan.”

“We need a plan.” Lea corrects. “Wall of fire?” He asks.

“No, that won’t trap him in…” My lips curl back over my teeth. I have always floundered when it comes to fighting Luxu, pulling my punches, struggling when I come to terms with the fact that he’s good at all of the same things I am, without any of the restrictions.

He sends a row of bullets at us and I just react, crying an air spell from my outstretched palm. It hurtles the bullets right back at him and to my chagrin, several pierce, but none stagger him. He keeps coming, surging forward. 

“We’ve never been as good at fighting together as we are at fighting each other, huh?” Lea asks. My eyes light up.

“We’re just like fire and ice.” I breathe. Lea catches my drift. I turn my Keyblade into La Luxure, lock my arms through Lea’s so that our backs are together and hold on tight. He spins me around, shooting out an unbreakable wall of fire just as I scream ‘blizzaza’ and let it rip straight out of the tips of La Luxure. 

I don’t even see what happens to Luxu, the sheer decay we’ve caused breaks down the ice that kept us safe from the chasm. It’s gaping once more and when the smoke clears, he’s nowhere to be found. 

“That’s not good.” I say as Lea sets me back down and my arms still tingle pleasantly with the remnants of his touch. Months without it and he revives me like oxygen. Why in the realm did I ever believe anything could suffice as consolation for him.

“Can’t worry about it now.” Lea tries, but he’s wrong, I can. Because Kingdom Hearts will be summoned today in some way, shape or form and Luxu has brought the others back before. Luxu knows very well how to bring them back and how to trap someone desperate into carrying out this plan again. But Lea grabs me by my shoulder and once again, I’m a slave only to him. He’s a cornerstone, an anchor that reminds me where I am when the rest of the realm pulls me every which way. “We’ll take him out.” He assures me. I don’t know that I believe him and I think he’s rather aware of that, but he lets me smile tightly at him and turn away

“Good luck.”

“Luck, schmuck. You’re not the only one who's been training, got it memorized?” Lea grins and with that, we take off, me sailing across the battlefield where Sora, Kairi and Del fight Gula. It’s not tricky sprinting up behind him, reforming Backbiter and putting it into his heart.

What is tricky is the abrupt sensation of my heart being torn out of my chest. My face contorts, I gasp as Gula falls to the ground and his heart releases. But why does mine feel like it’s being yanked out in tandem?

“Hey, none of that.” Del swoops an arm around me, keeping me steady. Sora blinks, setting a hand on his heart.

“That’s weird…” He trails off, but I don’t have the energy to ask what’s weird. It’s like I’ve been stabbed suddenly, so with Del half supporting me, I fish a Hi-Potion from my pocket and guzzle it. “It’s like you’re not there, it’s like you’re fading out.” Sora explains. “I mean, you haven’t been there in a while but now it’s like…”

Now it’s more than just Rueki being a brat and closing off the empathy link with a desperate grip, now they’re scared for me.

“It doesn’t matter.” I shake my head, feeling substantially better as an effect of the Hi-Potion. At least better enough to ignore the ache in my chest. “We’re two down now, only five left.”

“Only.” Kairi mutters. “These guys are tough.”

“We only have four left though, remember, Ava is on our side.” Del insists, and though I know better, I don’t correct him. Ava didn’t mince words.

She knows she has to die today.

My eyes find her across the battlefield, struck by how surreal it is to see meek, defenseless little Namine with a floral Keyblade in her hand, parrying Ira with Xion and Roxas beside her, though she hardly needs them for how fast and forceful she hits. It’s dazzling, but Ira’s a brick house. 

And I doubt the sneak attack I landed on Gula will be half as successful on his older siblings.

Someone’s blade comes straight for me, I don’t even have time to process whose, but once again, some sort of strange creature sprouts from the ground and uses vines to pull the Keyblade straight to the ground. A desperate hiss comes from my assailant--Invi.

But once again, Vanitas has my back and then some, even if it means she smashes his Unversed in the wake. 

“Someone should be keeping her occupied, huh?” Vanitas asks, stomping up behind Del, Kairi, Sora and I. I flash him a strained smirk.

“Just what I was thinking.” I agree. “You guys go try to find Luxu, we’ll take care of her.”

“On it!” Del nods and the three take off, leaving us to stand off against Invi.

“Need company?” I hear Riku’s voice behind us and I breathe a sigh in delicious relief. 

“Definitely.” I say as Riku comes up to join us. Through her mask, I can feel Invi’s gaze, cold and calculating as she looks at the three of us. 

“What’s the plan?” Vanitas asks, and though I should be shocked he’s asking me, I guess that’s the only reason he is. Because it’s me. Somewhere along the line I earned that, and my heart swells with that realization.

“No plan, she’s a superhuman. Act quickly.” I reply. Riku cracks a grin. 

“She relies heavily on magic. Vanitas and I can go in and knock her off guard, you’ll have to be quick.” Riku warns. I nod.

“My specialty.” And with that, we lunge in, Vanitas leads the crusade. Invi casts an ice spell and sends it his way, but Riku shoots a ball of dark fire at it, all but evaporating the ice. Darkness shoots out of Vanitas’ fingertips, wrapping around Invi as he slides toward her, but Invi slices it off with the flash of light from her fingertips. My eyes go wide, I’m starving for a hit of it and I feel Vanitas’ heart clench in hungry anticipation as well.

Riku isn’t quite as held back. He charges straight in and smashes his blade into Invi, the muscles in his arms rippling. She buckles, but only by barely, and bats him off with her Keyblade. Still as she casts Riku aside, Vanitas sails in, slashing unyieldingly at her. No matter how she beats into him, he refuses to stop, refuses to back down, refuses to break until she aims her Keyblade at him, shrieks ‘ultima’ and throws him onto his back with a burst of light.

A burst of light that I feel, Vanitas’ agony ripples off of me with such intensity that I hit my knees, screaming as I double over.

A shadow washes over me, then another, someone screams and only when I look up, do I realize it is Invi.

Between the nearly arrived Skuld and Isa, she’s batted until Riku and Vanitas manage their way back to their feet. My eyes go huge, I force myself up and go running in with my Keyblade pulled back.

Only when Backbiter goes straight through her heart does Invi hiss again, defiant and righteous even as she crumbles to the ground and her heart is dispersed back into Kingdom Hearts. 

But where I should be feeling high and victorious, once again I’m gutted, clawed at from within. My eyes cross, tears prickle at my vision, I start to spill forward, but Skuld surprisingly is the one to catch me, pushing me up with her lean arms.

“She didn’t even hit you, what the hell is your problem?” Vanitas is clutching his own heart as he hobbles over to me, far more bruised than I am. With absolutely zero attempt to ask permission, he fishes into my pouch and grabs us both Elixirs, which this time I’m desperate for. 

I suck in a breath, pinching my eyes shut as I try to let the healing effects of the Elixir flood through me, and they do. But to my utter horror, I am even less revived than I felt with the Hi-Potion.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I can still move, I’ll be fine.” I insist, but now I’m starting to wonder if releasing these hearts is triggering some sort of degenerative poison. To be safe, I open my eyes and pull an Antidote from my pouch and guzzle it. I’m going through these damn healing items so fast, I better hope I don’t need to do much in the way of synthesis. 

“Where’s Luxu?” Skuld asks.

“He disappeared when Lea and I blew apart that hole in the ground.” I say. “Kairi, Sora and Del are trying to find him.”

“Good.” She narrows her eyes and nods. I know I don’t need to tell her just how slippery he is.

Pain surges in my chest and even with her hands on me, I start to tumble forward.

“What’s wrong, Rueki?” Riku asks as Isa tries to aid in stabilizling me, I just shake my head.

“I’ve got no fucking clue.” I wince, reaching out. Vanitas grabs my hand and yanks me up, harder than the others will and I put my full weight into him, letting Skuld and Isa off the hook.

“You’re able to stand?” Isa confirms, I nod. “Then you’ll be fine.” And I know he knows I will be because I know he knows it takes a lot more than surges of pain to break me down.

“Look, if you need to sit, you killed off half of the Foretellers. Let the rest of us take the lead.” Riku insists, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that no one else will see the task to completion. No one else will put a blade through Namine and I think that is why, from the very beginning she’s set me up to handle the dirty work, to stomach the tasks no one else will. I think I should feel more nauseated than I am by that, but   
I’m still just angry and her sacrifice still means so little to me. 

“She said she’s fine!” Vanitas snaps.

“Oh, you’re suddenly her advocate?” Skuld scoffs. “You tried to kill her in Wonderland.”

“Listen--” He starts, but I squeeze his arm with my metal hand and only when I use force enough to bruise does he register my touch and stop.

“This is gonna sound fucked up, but did anyone pack any syringes?” I ask. Everyone looks at me like I'm a damn lunatic except for Isa, who fishes around his pocket and procures some, already filled with bright red elixir. 

“That trick Lea used on you was incredibly handy.” He admits and my eyes go soft as warm relief spreads through me.

“Thank you.” I say. “I’m sorry I have to jack these from you.”

“Be sorry for other things.” He pats a hand to my shoulder and if it were anyone other than Isa, I might blanch at the callousness. With him, it almost feels like an urge to breathe easy. I pat his hand with mine and look between Skuld and Riku.

“Ira’s not easy to face off against, I’m going to help Ava and the others.” Skuld informs me.

“And I’ll do the same with Aced.” Riku nods.

“He’s cocky, use that against him.” I insist.

“What about you?” Isa asks me, I look to Vanitas who cracks a grin.

“We’re going to shove enough darkness into the realm to break it wide open.” Vanitas replies, wickedly.

“So when you guys kill off the others, try to have Roxas, Xion or Sora give me the heads up, I don’t want to inject enough darkness to call Kingdom Hearts to fix our damage until all of the Foretellers are gone, if I can help it.” I say, then look at Isa. “Lea wants dibs on putting Luxu’s face into the ground and stomping, can you make sure he doesn’t die?”

“Don’t I always?” Isa asks. I smile warmly then turn to Vanitas.

“Let’s get this going then.” And with that, the five of us part, Vanitas and I taking off toward the ark.

“Is this where the Keyhole is?” Vanitas asks me as we sprint and I nod, still feeling the heart decaying effects in the form of utter winding. I can’t take deep enough breaths, my heart is a drum in my temples beating so loud, it seems at the edge of bursting. 

“The Master had a black box in there, there’s some sort of pattern to open it, but once we do, you and I can dive straight into the world’s heart and fill it with darkness.” I explain. “Between the two of us, we should be able to summon enough to tip the scales.”

“What’s your plan for if we can’t?” He asks. I twist my mouth.

“Can you still summon Darklings?” I ask.

“And Unversed.” He says as we come up on the ark, though I already knew that.

“Well, maybe with this black magic sphere I have, I’ll be able to call Nobodies. If we can’t do it on our own, we have all of them flood the world’s heart.” I roll my shoulders back and push through the door, doubling over, eyes flying wide as I feel another heart tear free of its vessel. I spill forward, Vanitas catches me and together we watch Aced hit the ground, his heart disintegrating into the air as Donald and Aqua stand over him. 

“Should be an easy fight for the rest of them.” Vanitas predicts, but looks at me again, eyes flashing wide. “Your heart…” 

Is killing me, is burning, is causing my vision to blur and Vanitas sets me on the cold ground just inside of the ark, pressing my cheek to one of the eerie, filled pods. The doors close behind us, I grunt, clasping a hand over my chest, trying to fight back tears.

“It’s fine.” I try, but it’s not and someone that feels my heart and my pain and my emotions would be able to tell that without even looking at me. 

“It’s your heart...it feels like when Ventus died…” Vanitas touches his chest and then my neck with shaky, unsure tenderness. I grab his hand with the one made of flesh and bring it to my face, guiding him to where I need comfort.

“It feels like I’m dying.” I choke out, his lip starts to tremble.

“I think your heart is.” He confesses. 

“But how could--” How could he know? That’s answered easily, because if Ventus is the source of light and Vanitas is the source of darkness, then of course it would be an excruciating extraction to kill one and not the other. Of course it would feel like a heart is being severed, but then why the hell would mine be doing the same thing? I can’t dive into my Station of Awakening now to even--

But that’s just it. My Station of Awakening must be crumbling. Because I know what once lay etched in its glass. The Master’s eye. Part of his very essence was thrust into me just as it was into all of the other Foretellers. Does that mean that one by one, as the world is rid of them, more and more is being taken from me until nothing will be left of my heart but crumbled, jagged glass?

And if the Master’s heart was inside of me too does that mean…

Does that…

Can this realm and I survive in tandem?

The realization passes from me to Vanitas, I start shaking so hard I’m vibrating but he grabs my shoulders and jars them.

“Cut that you, you have no way of knowing!” He demands.

“But what am I supposed to do if it does crumble, can I even live like that?” I ask. His eyes go hard.

“Then your dumb friend will have to give you his light and you’ll be the last Princess of Heart, don’t be stupid, they’re not letting you die!” He orders.

“But if I live...do they all?” I ask. He can’t answer my question, and collectively we hold our breath, me too in shock to know how to mourn my own life and him too tattered to know how to comfort me. Vanitas grabs me up by the top of my arms and pulls me to my feet.

“Where are those syringes?” He asks. I ruffle my hands through my pouch until I find him one. He takes the top off of it, lays my arm flat, flicks a vein until it’s vibrant then jams the needle into there, releasing the Elixir hot and heady through me. It’s almost dizzying but most importantly, it’s relieving. “You can still stand. You’re not that fucking stupid, you keep moving until you can’t.”

I nod, touching his hand with mine. I wonder if it is half as soothing for him as it is for me.

“They still have Ira left. And they haven’t found Luxu yet.” I say. 

“What about Ava?” Vanitas asks.

“With any luck, she’ll either come find us or Ira or Luxu will kill her. If they don’t and she doesn’t come to us, I’ll have to make Roxas, Sora or Xion do it.” And right now, it’s like me trying to decide who could possibly be likely to forgive me for compelling them to do something that will stop them from sleeping, just as it did to me. Who can I make commit the greatest atrocity as my proxy?

“And when they do, we’ll dive.” Vanitas nods. 

Another crippling blow to my heart tells me that Ira’s heart is torn from his body. I cry out but Vanitas clutches me, supporting me with hands around my wrists.

“Who?” He asks, and Roxas’ visual tells me that Skuld put her blade straight through Ira and tore it back out of him with sickening satisfaction. Roxas’ visual tells me that the Foreteller hit the ground just the same way his siblings did, sheerly overwhelmed by the force humans are capable of. 

And that’s where they’re crumbling, that’s the soft spot of those who are infinitely stronger than us. We’re constantly underestimated, I was constantly underestimated. It would be hellishly satisfying to watch them fall if I didn’t fear and feel my own demise on the edge. 

“Ira.” I grunt, clutching Vanitas to keep myself upright. “Still no sign of Luxu.”

“Have your friends kill Ava.” He orders, but I shake my head, defiant as ever. 

“Not unless I can’t do it myself.”

“Always playing the little martyr.” A voice sounds off, rumbling like thunder in the echoes created from the ark. Vanitas and I turn, though I already know the voice’s owner. “Can honestly say, I’m a little shocked you replaced me with this one, not Axel. Good luck kid, she’ll stab your back in the end too.” Luxu strides forward, his footfalls clattering through the room. 

“I was really hoping you’d show up here.” Vanitas calls his sword back to him, venom in his eyes.

“I bet you were, but the thing is, I was hoping to have this one all to myself.” Luxu waves a hand and with it, calls a herd of lesser Nobodies, all Snipers. I call Backbiter back, ignoring the aching in my chest. Powered up on Elixir, I can make this, I can do this.

Vanitas takes one look at me, narrows his eyes and howls, summoning a cluster of Unversed, massive and agile alike to plow through the Snipers. Luxu cackles. With a pop, he’s gone. Vanitas and I whirl around, searching high and low, but there is only a trace of Luxu when he sticks his hand out from a portal, grabs me by the hair and smashes me down onto the ground by my head. I reel, my vision goes white, but before his hand is free from my hair, I grab onto his arm with both hands and drag him out of the portal, crying out with the effort. Vanitas doesn’t waste a fucking second, I’ve got Luxu out of the portal, up to his ribs, and with utter hatred, Vanitas comes flying over and stabs clean through--

Missing his heart by a fraction of an inch.

Another pop and Luxu’s on the ground in the ark in front of us, howling as he clutches his chest, now pumping blood out of a body that’s never been his in the first place. I push myself up and go charging toward his limp form only to have a portal open up just behind my feet. His legs snake out of there and mirror one of my moves, wrapping around my ankles and putting me into the ground, face first.

I hear the sound of his gun firing arrows, I hear Vanitas choke Luxu climbs up, I leap up, eyes wide and dilated, nostrils flared as I tear away from him. He regards his gaping chest as a mild inconvenience, I look to Vanitas who is pinned down by an onslaught from the Snipers that tore his Unversed--and ultimately his own heart-- apart. I squeeze Backbiter tightly. 

“Feel fucking proud of yourself, kid?” Luxu asks.

“I’d feel a lot better if Lea was here to cut you heart out while I held you down, but Vanitas will suffice.” I hiss. He snickers, like I’m so pathetic, it’s funny. I almost lunge in his direction, but I know how hard Luxu lives for the chase, how he thrives on this taunting, on this cat and mouse, and despite how desperate I am to end this, the more I can prolonge it, the better chance I have at getting backup. With the chambers of my empathy link reopened I call to Sora, Roxas and Xion and beg them to head for the ark, because Luxu found his way back to me and even as I look at him now, I’m formulating the best way to take him down.

“Where’s that gonna get you, squirt?” He hums as he stalks toward me. I take a step back for every one he takes forward and he cackles, a predator who knows defense is above and beyond my greatest weakness. My face contorts. “You’re gonna kill us all so we can never come back to life, but as long as your heart’s around, we are too. In the world’s heart, in the realm. Someone else will come along and summon Kingdom Hearts and because of you, we’ll all live.”

“Good luck with that.” I bite. 

“As if, have you forgotten how easy you are to fool?” He asks, howling a laugh as he reforms his Keyblade and drags it against the flooring. My stomach sinks. Come on, guys, I plead. “This’ll all be a cake walk.” His eye flashes as he takes his Keyblade and swings it at me so hard, I barely get mine up to defend. My teeth rattle and reverberate in my skull. My eyes nearly roll back, it takes everything I have and a whole lot more to face off against someone so intensely superhuman when I am scarcely even standing.

Compared to him, my movements are tired, sluggish, weak. He knocks me clean off my feet and into the glass where the replicas are stored. The glass cracks against my skull but doesn’t shatter as I slide down onto the floor. I blink back spots as Luxu teleports in close, not close enough for Backbiter’s lack of length to help me, in fact, he’s just out of my reach, forcing me to dodge attacks that I won’t last if he lands. 

Hurriedly, pathetically, I shove a hand forward, calling every bit of darkness within me, within my dark materia forward hands shaking, knuckles taut and white through my skin. The pressure builds inside of me, straining my muscles, consuming my mind, quaking my body until it erupts hot and fierce and relieving from the palm of my hand. Blackness pours rough and jagged from me, devouring his light and then--

And then recreating it?

No, that can’t be right. I blink against the blinding whiteness, watching lithe white creatures with thick, clunky arms cause chemical reactions as they swing at him, as they overpower his Snipers, as they ward them off of Vanitas. And then, they descend on Luxu, with his blown wide eye and the shock which has removed the color from his face.

“How the hell?” Luxu howls. “How are you summoning Nobodies?”

I don’t know the answer to this, but I am summoning Nobodies that I have never seen before, such unique creatures which glow, glyphs lighting along their massive arms as they throw themselves on their targets and detonate. 

‘We gain and lose life only to serve you, Mistress’, they tell me in their low, eerie voice, a voice so similar to Dusks, which echoes in my head.

With a recompleted heart, I am summoning something I couldn’t as a Nobody--Lesser Nobodies of my own.

Transmuters.

My breath hikes, my eyes go wide.

“You can’t, you’re human!” Luxu insists.

“She is, I’m not.” Vanitas crawls off the ground, blood pouring from his shoulder as he yanks an arrow out of it and lets it detonate on the ground. His lips curl over his teeth, the Nobodies follow him on their path to Luxu. “You thought you were the only one who could dip around her heart? As long as there is one dark corner, as long as there is a trace of blackness, I control her, I can find her. All the light you cast on her created so many shadows. There’s no difference between her and I, all my strength is hers!” 

And I feel it, I do, the destructive, devouring, seductive, overpowering darkness that tips my heart over the edge and back again, into and out of utter decay. This shaky resolve in the haziest edges is the most powerful I’ve ever felt, but more than that, it’s the most protected. I push myself up, feeling Vanitas push his strength out of his own heart and into me, just as I did to Sora in the sleeping realm. I make quick use of it, leaping over to Luxu as fast as my legs will take me, Backbiter whipped back. I strike hot and fast, the sound and spark of metal has he blocks nearly makes me go deaf, but with my own speed, as well as Vanitas’ coursing through me, I’m fast, I tear my blade back from his and beat and bash and bear into him in ways that are plainly not human, until Luxu is buckling, breaking, fumbling into the sleek floor. Desperately, he bats his Keyblade at me, and like a fluke, it smashes into my middle, a fraction of a second too quick for even my suped up reflexes to stop.

That fraction of a second changes everything.

I go skidding back, I hit the ground, sliding on the flooring, I nearly crash into a wall and would, likely breaking the glass from a pod all over myself had my hands not planted onto the edge of the floor in the knick of time. 

I look down. A scream catches in my throat. My hands are planted perfectly on the edge of the sigil I drew on the floor. The door to the ark rips open, light starts to glow from the floor, outside the door, I hear explosives detonate, see ashes flutter up from the earth, I still can’t find my voice, but now it’s because Vanitas has retracted his energy and mine is pouring out of me in waves and tendrils, crashing out of my body, breaking it down. My head smashes into the floor.

Beneath me, the transmutation begins.

The pods glow, my lifeforce leaves my body, a life force I didn’t have to spare as things start crawling out of the pods.

Not replicas, not Keybearers past.

Darklings. Their hungry eyes search. I hear Luxu laugh, I hear the pop as he shifts planes, I hear someone scream.

And then all I see is the pitch black tidal waves as they devour us.


	60. Chapter 60

LIX. 

The absolute madness that rains down upon us is claustrophobic, blinding. I completely shut down and if Vanitas wasn’t literally dragging me to my feet, the Darkling that jumps out in front of me would have gotten a lot more than just a claw through my knuckles. It stings, and like the other scars they left, I know this one will never heal properly. My hands are shaking, Vanitas slashes into a hoard of Darklings and dissipates them, my brain starts working and I cry out a thunder spell, vanquishing some of them in our surrounding area.

But they demand the lux, the light, and when I turn, I see, unsurprisingly, that they are clustered around Del. Ava’s doing wonders to help him, but even she’s having a hard time. 

“Mega Flare!” Donald cries out.

“Blizzaja!” Aqua screams. I don’t have the energy for this spell, I chug an Elixir and scream it out anyway.

“Thundaja!” I literally fall right back into Vanitas, but the arena is so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of magic washing over it that the Darklings start to disintegrate, shrieking as they are devoured by a violent death. 

“It’s not doing enough!” Vanitas snaps. I turn to conspire with him and realize he is the singular thing keeping me from getting attacked, pinning me to the shattered glass in the walls. A Darkling comes leaping at him, I circle my arms around his waist and shriek another spell like our very lives depend on it.

“Reflega!” The barrier envelopes us and the Darkling is torn apart as it pings off of the barrier. We’re both panting as we seperate, me from the exertion, him from the strain of the sudden touch, but I feel the gratitude radiating off of him in waves, straight from his screaming heart. “Do you have enough in you to summon some more Nobodies?” I ask, he snorts.

“You should be asking yourself that.” He reminds me, I laugh this miserable, aching, breathless laugh and pound another Elixir, body burning up. I put a hand out, he sets one over mine and Transmuters burst to life throughout the ark, smashing their clunky arms into the Darklings. Not one of our allies looks without damage, but one by one, we all pluck off Darklings. I regain my bearings, watching all of the other groups send out frightening attacks. Roxas and Xion do something insane with their Keyblades, Sora and Kairi summon what looks like light but is probably just a suped up Pearl spell with theirs, Sora and Riku shoot out something powerful, so do Aqua and Terra, Skuld and Isa move so in sync, it’s like they’re sharing a mind altogether. Lea however, is struggling to fend off an absolute herd of Darklings so I take off running, ignoring the ache in my body, ignoring the screaming in my chest.

“Lea!” I cry out his name and send Backbiter sailing through the air. Reflexively, he catches it, slashes through some Darklings and holds it flat. I leap off of it, go through the air, catch Flame Liberator in my hand, turn it to Chakrams and slash through the rest of the herd, with a flourish. I fall onto my ass, huffing as I look around. We’re all looking around, every single one of us, waiting for more, but there are no more. I could fall back and never wake up, I’m so spent, but I realize, this is hardly the end for any of us. Lea looks anxiously down at me, I wonder if he’s worried he’s already been too cordial with me when I don’t deserve it. All he said we’d do is talk after this, and here I go, wildly saving his life. But he extends a hand to me and I almost come undone, feeling his fingers wrap around mine as he pulls me up. My legs shake, but I thank him and make my way back over toward the black box, which unsurprisingly, is unscathed.

“The Master locked it back up when you released Scala ad Caelum and brought back Daybreak Town it’ll require elemental magic to reopen it...but it has fewer locks than it should. Something might be waiting for you when you enter.” Namin--Ava tells me. Every muscle in my body goes completely rigid, my nostrils flare, and I want to eliminate her right here and now, but I tell myself we need her still. I tell myself that so I don’t get torn apart immediately for putting my Keyblade into her chest. 

“So are you going to do something about it or are you going to tear a new hole into me to make sure it gets done?” I snap at her, but she takes it in shocking stride. Aqua does not.

“We shouldn’t even be wasting our time letting you speak, you’re the reason all of this is happening, you’re the reason Ventus--” Her breath catches in her throat, her hands start to shake, Terra sets one of his on her shoulder. “If Amaya would just realize--”

“Stop being so bitter your student has surpassed you, master.” Vanitas seethes the word ‘master’ like it’s filthy and strides confidently to my side. 

“You should have died instead of him.” Aqua juts a Keyblade toward Vanitas and I put myself right between the two of them, her Keyblade touching my chest. “Don’t. Test. Me.” The words come between punctuated breaths.

“The world’s off balance, good luck finding another more solid source of darkness than Vanitas.” I hiss. We stand like this, no one knowing how to respond, Aqua’s muscles strained, me daring her in my eyes. A pale hand is set on her Keyblade and starts to lower it. 

“Rueki is right, we need all of the players we can possibly handle to reset the balance and end the Foretellers for good.” Ava says patiently. I could wrap my hands around her neck right now when I think of how hard she played the victim just to twist my coils, she’s exactly as bad as Luxu and doesn’t even have the courtesy to acknowledge it. “For now, we’ll need seven spells to unlock the Keyhole: Light, dark, fire, ice, lightning, water and air. All grand magic tier or better.”

“Fire’s my specialty.” Lea pipes in right away, clearly trying to find a way to avoid the rest of this disaster.

“Lightning’s mine.” Elrena purses her lips.

“I think I could probably channel the light in my heart.” Del nods.

“And I’m the darkness.” Vanitas says, almost possessively. 

“Fine, I’ve got ice.” Aqua decides.

“And I can take the air spell.” Donald decides. Eyes fall to Emyd who groans.

“Do I have to?” He whines.

“Stop being a jackass.” Elrena elbows him.

“Look, I would, but I’m pretty sure if I exert for another spell, I’m going to pass out.” I admit. 

“And fat chance getting me into the Keyhole without her.” Vanitas says. My face burns but my heart swells with utter pride. “I can channel her energy, if I need it to fix the world’s heart.” He covers quickly, but it doesn’t stop the euphoric rush from pulsing through me.

“You might need time magic on your side, I can assist when you go through.” Ludor offers.

“Well, you won’t go alone. We’ve been fighting this from the beginning, if you go, I will too.” Skuld says and Ludor’s jaw goes slack, like once again, there’s another difficult woman he’s realizing he has to apologize for. At least he’s perfected the art. 

“Luxu’s not gone yet through.” I remind them, Ava shakes her head.

“No, but there will be a window as the darkness works its way in to devour the light. When it does, Kingdom Hearts will be summoned. Luxu just needs to be ended by then.” She explains. “We need all of us, if something were to happen to any of you four when fighting him…” She trails off, and I grit my teeth. She might not have the Master’s foresight, but she’s aware that my heart is drained increasingly by the death of her siblings. And if Vanitas does need my strength to fix this, I can’t deprive him, even if almost certainly...even if most likely I’m going to--

“Let’s just do this.” Aqua nearly growls, aiming her Keyblade at one of the locks.

The others follow suit and in an absolute blast, the box is thrown open, the Keyhole shining from within it.

“Ready?” Skuld asks, aiming her Keyblade at it as Ludor follows her over to Vanitas and I.

“Obviously.” Vanitas scowls. Skuld lets his words slide right off of her and the four of us ride the beam of light from her Keyblade, into the Keyhole.

What we’re met with is the realm’s most extensive maze, containing thirteen empty slots. I look around. 

“That’s where the other locks went.” I murmur.

“Well, this will be fun.” Skuld decides. And it’s not great, but between the four of us, we’re wise enough to discover where the spheres are hidden and place them accordingly. The second we do, a wall completely opens up, revealing...revealing a horrifying looking heart, beaming too blindingly, beaming brilliant, unnatural white light at us. “It’s… it’s so bright.” Skuld shields her eyes. Ludor stares at the heart, lips parted, I turn toward Vanitas, wondering silently if there’s enough darkness between the two of us to even make a difference. His gaze hardens, but if he has an answer he doesn’t allow me to be privy to it.

“There’s got to be a way.” I decide, because surely Ava would not have encouraged us if this path was fruitless. Though she doesn’t have the same foresight as the Master, surely she has a better guess than the rest of us, right?

“Of course there is.” My eyes light as I recognize the voice, but instantly I realize something must be wrong. I must be hallucinating. Ludor and I make eye contact and I realize I’m not. The glow from the world’s heart starts to dissipate though the light doesn’t fade. Still, we’re able to stare clearer into it, and what stares back almost knocks me to the ground.

Lauriam sets his hand on the shoulder of a girl who looks like a younger version of me. She smiles and waves at me. A dark haired boy with striking blue eyes, nearly obscured by the way his hat presses his hair into said eyes stares up at us from a book. A boy with white hair and a red scarf welcomes us and beside him stands --

“Ventus!” Vanitas cries out and nearly leaps toward the heart, but I grab his arm and yank him back.

“You don’t know if it’s a trap, idiot!” I remind him.

“I feel him!” Vanitas sweara and Ventus laughs. He smiles and laughs and looks at me with the type of light in his eyes that forgives all without the need to forget. To be quite frank, I feel him too.

“Not a trap.” The silver haired boy shakes his head.

“Ephemer.” Ludor whispers and takes a step forward.

“Brain.” Skuld smiles, tucking hair behind her ears. Unflinchingly, the two move to greet who I immediately understand are old friends.

“How is this possible?” Ludor asks.

“I stayed behind, remember?” Ephemer smiles sadly. “My heart rests with Keybearers who need it. And dang, do you guys need it.” He chuckles.

“I was the one who founded the world this one turned into. Daybreak Town and Scala ad Caelum are still one in the same, I’ve been waiting in this world’s heart for a long time, but what good virus doesn’t sleep until the time is right?” The blue eyed boy, Brain, explains.

“The rest of us returned to the heart of the world from which we originated when we perished.” Lauriam explains, my brow comes together, I look to Ventus.

“But you’re the source of light.” Isn’t he? He nods and takes steps toward me but I can’t compel myself forward, much as I want to.

“The Master was right, my essence went to every world in the realm of light. I made sure there was just enough here to act as a jumping point.” Ventus explains. 

“For what?” I ask.

“For darkness.” Vanitas answers, I hear the ache in his voice. Ventus nods.

“Did you know?” Skuld asks Ven. “What you were? What it really meant for you and Vanitas to be separated?” 

“Not until I was released. There’s a lot of things different when you’re not trapped in a body, memories you didn’t realize you could access, strength you didn’t realize you had.” Ventus explains.

“So what would you propose we do?” Ludor asks, looking at the five of them as though they hold the final key. For us, they may. 

“The realm is on shaky ground now.” Strelitzia finally speaks and I feel my insides clench in the sweetest of ways, break apart and mend with just a voice. “There’s not much you can do in the present, we’ll need to return magic to the past in order to send it to the heart.”

Immediately, Ludor’s hands clench into fists.

“Of course, I won’t fail you again.” He swears. A sad, aching look crosses Ephemer’s face.

“You didn’t fail us even once, old friend. The reason we’re even able to help you today is because of what you gave to save the realm when it would need it most.” Ephemer assures him. The relief that washes over Ludor’s features is forgiveness, absolution to a prisoner on death row. There is no deeper satisfaction in existence.

“And as amazing as your magic is, it’s not the magic we need.” Streltizia smiles, soft and sweet at him. 

Skuld blinks, she opens her mouth to speak, but before she does, Brain shakes his head.

“You can’t fix everything, Skuld.” Brain assures her. “You can’t be expected to.” She flushes in a way that I don’t expect of someone as steadfast as Skuld, but then I remember these are the people who knew her before Luxu had the opportunity to break her. 

“Then whose magic do you need?” Ludor asks, though the answer is something I fear and know for certain. Especially as the young man in my arms takes a breath. I shake my head.

“Please, no.” I whisper.

“Ventus isn’t acting as a jumping point for human beings to play god in another world’s heart. He’s acting as a tether for me, for darkness.” Vanitas says, and I want to pinch my eyes shut but I force myself to watch Ven nod. 

“Darkness always chases the light, we can’t exist without each other.” Ven promises. “You remember it, don’t you? In the past, you were free.”

“I didn’t have a body, I didn’t have limits, my voice was louder than the voice of whatever I possessed. The second I curled up into the heart of your shell, it was like someone put a collar on me.” Vanitas mutters. “I could do it again, return darkness to the past and corrupt this light if it weren't for the damn collar.”

“Please don’t go.” I hold Vanitas tighter. Every set of eyes around us blow wide and fall on us. Vanitas squirms away from me and I feel in both of our hearts, the hunger to close the distance, if for no other reason than to feel the warm assurance of understanding, of dark acceptance. 

“I don’t have enough energy right now to dull this world’s light. Kingdom Hearts can’t come and even out what we did unless I discard my body like the old man did and go back in time.” Vanitas insists.

“There are events that needed to happen too, that you influence. Ventus cannot make it to the present to fuel the light half of Kingdom Hearts if I make it to the Data Daybreak Town.” Strelitia says. “I won’t be with my brother now unless something stops me from making it to the first Keyblade War.”

No wonder Vanitas couldn’t remember why he killed Strelitzia. He killed her because here and now, she's demanding he does. It’s the most repulsive, twisted paradox I can think of and now, I feel the only thing in my world that could relate to the depths I sunk to, slip between my fingers. My friend. 

“Well discard your body but save some damn energy!” I demand. “As long as you do, as long as there’s some dark corner of the world, I can bring you back, right? Save your energy and I’ll tether you to a replica! You’re heart’s tied to mine, I’ve done it to others, I’ll do it again! Please!” I beg Vanitas, shaking his shoulders. His jaw is so tight, he’s so thrown and I can tell he has no idea what to do, especially not now, surrounded by questioning eyes. One by one, he plucks my fingers off his body and turns to Ventus. 

“Oh, calm down. Of course I’ll still be in your heart. In every dark corner you come past, in every shadow in the realm. I’m darkness, I don’t die so easily.” Vanitas casts me a wicked grin. Hope knots in the base of my throat. I don’t even get to throw my arms around him once more before Ventus extends a hand and Vanitas leaps forward and takes it. 

Blackness washes over us, eats away at our nerves, courses into not just the heart of this world, but all worlds, slowly eating away the barrier light has placed around it. The force breaks us down and ejects us straight from the world's heart, as though we are merely debris in a windstorm. The others crowd around the black box. Kairi rushes to my side as soon as I hit the ground and helps me up, setting one hand on my cheek while the other steadies me.

“What happened?” She asks. “Where’s Vanitas? Will you still be able to kill Xigbar?”

I stop hearing when she says ‘Vanitas’. Because I set a hand to my heart and notice a hole, larger, more gaping, more empty like a door busted off its hinges, than the hole where the Foretellers belong. The corridor to a section of my empathy link that was once too dark to even consider, is hollow and threatens to swallow me faster than the hole that’s threatening to cause my death.

Vanitas is gone. Vanitas lied to me about saving his energy. Vanitas is never coming back.

I shove myself up, shoulders and arms trembling, eyes blown wide, lips curled over my teeth in a feral snarl. Nothing else matters anymore. Not my pain, not my body, not what could happen to it. The only thing in this realm that means anything, is that I make sure the Foretellers saga ends permanently, today. From my pouch, I find a Megalixir and guzzle it, ignoring the way it burns, hot and threatening to devour the inside of my veins. The healing effects rush from my heart to the rest of my body, I curl my hand into a fist as the other closes around an Al-Bhed Potion in my pouch.

I’m going to kill him.

I slam the Al-Bhed Potion and a Luck Sphere onto the ground and bat them with Backbiter. They shatter and the energy fills my body, heightening my senses, readying my muscles, bringing me to life.

A Hero Drink will be the smallest of Luxu’s worries today.

I head for the door, I don’t look back, I don’t wait for anyone.

“Rueki!” Ava calls for me, but I don’t turn, I grip the door to the ark like a vice. “How do you expect to fight him when he can shift to planes you cannot reach him?”

“How about you figure that out, since you put me into this position in the first place?” I snap. “Figure it out, and I’ll figure out how to kill your brother.” I tear the door off its hinges, sucking in the air, even as ashes still rain down, eyes zeroing in like a scope as I find Luxu standing unapologetically in the middle of everything.

“Come to cry about your friend, squirt?” Luxu taunts, I grit my jaw and don’t hesitate, fist going tight around Backbiter’s hilt. I’m not in the slightest bit surprised that he feels the shift as darkness works its way back into the heart of all worlds, as slowly Kingdom Hearts is reformed. 

“I lost someone I cared about.” I tell him, shoulders not falling, eyes not softening while I close the distance.

“Right, you’re the only one who’s ever had anything hard happen to her.” He leers.

“I understand you’ve never lost someone you cared about, because you’ve only ever cared about yourself.” I say. “Let me teach you how it feels.”

Our blades clash in a shower of sparks. Luxu is above and beyond stronger than me, but with the Hero Drink and Megalixir coursing through me, pumping scalding energy through my veins, I keep up easily. He pulls his blade out from beneath mine and slashes at me, I leap so high into the air that I wrap my legs around his neck and toss him straight to the ground, kicking up debris in our wake. He throws me off of him I tuck and roll, coming out on bended knee. He morphs his blades into the arrowgun again and rains a shower of both bullets and arrows on me. I swipe aside nearly all of them but one catches me in the shoulder. I see white, but force myself through it, ignoring the blurring at the edges of my vision. 

Vanitas is dead and I have borrowed time before Kingdom Hearts is formed, I am not letting him go in vain.

Luxu teleports in, upside down, unleashing another onslaught of arrows at me. I roar out a fire spell, it pours out of my nose, my mouth, my fingertips and incinerates the arrows in their wake. I twist up to my feet, launching my body and an ice spell in tandem. Frozen daggers go flying at him and even Luxu has a hard time dodging them. He’s got to teleport away again, the fucking coward. And it’s not enough that he does that, he puts himself up so high into the sky that it’s nearly impossible to fight him.

Nearly. 

“Aeroza!” I cry out, waving a hand as the gust carries me up high into the air. I throw myself across it, sailing toward Luxu. My arms close around him and then abruptly, go limp. The Hero Drink wears off and I go crashing to the ground. Consciousness slips in and out, as easy as the flow of the stream, and ironically, it’s a bubble of water that catches me on my back. It feels about the same as hitting concrete, but it’s better than actually hitting the ground. Tears streak from my eyes into my temples and my hair. I can barely move my hands to find an Elixir, but someone else does it for me. Roxas helps me sit up, he puts the Elixir to my lips, he squeezes my shoulder.

“Ava thinks if all of us magic users trap Xigbar in a reflect barrier, we’ll be able to trap him long enough for you to beat him.” Roxas informs me. I don’t have it left in me to be grateful.

“Stop talking about it then, and do it.” Thanks to the Elixir, I can stand, but still, I find another syringe, jam it into my leg and inject even more of the Elixir. I take a Grenade and a bit of Dark Matter and put it into the ground with Backbiter. This time, a Quartet of 9 fills me, and though I will not be any faster than normal or half as immune to pain, Luxu’s speed will yield to the breathtaking strength that pumps through me. My skin grows burning hot, my body can barely handle the constant energy, reanimating me when I have nothing left to give. But I demand myself to keep giving and I take off, charging to where Luxu is. 

Bullets come raining down at me now, I grunt and smack them aside with the whip of my Keyblade. One impales itself into my thigh, I ignore the ache, all traction, all momentum. I leap high into the air and straight up bat the arrowguns out of his hands. It clatters into the cobblestone, kicking up dirt in its wake. Luxu’s eye flashes, but he’s still grinning and I loathe that. We come down to the ground, him making a move for his guns, me making another move for him. I stomp my foot into the ground and shout ‘waterza’, a spike of a wave knocks his arrowguns aside and without them being a reformed Keyblade, he can’t call it back so easily. He goes scrambling for it, and for just a second, I tell myself I see a hint of panic in his eye. It’s the exact flash of adrenaline I need. I drop Backbiter to the ground, teleport in on him, grab him by his arm and bash him into the ground face first. 

My skin is beet red, he turns over, staring up at me, and this time, it’s not just panic in his eye, but horror. I have ceased to be mortal in his eyes. He scuttles out, making a move to teleport away, but as quickly as he tries to get high enough in the sky where I cannot capture him, he’s knocked back down. Something zings and Luxu hits the ground again, gasping, body finally starting to give on him. We both look up at where a hexagonal barrier has trapped us in. Far enough away where I didn’t notice them assemble, my friends have formed a circle, aiming their weapons in the air to a central point, keeping a reflect barrier between up around us. 

Backbiter is on the ground, just out of reach, just far enough away, but pride swells hot and heavy through me. Luxu can’t fight without a weapon. I can.

I dive at him, fists knocked back, he’s quick to come to his feet and even quicker to dodge, but where he misses my metal fist, I land a wet, smacking, satisfying blow with my human fist. I feel the bones splinter, my eyes cross and in that moment, he slithers away from me and over to his arrow guns. He turns them back into a Keyblade, hurls it at me and knocks me onto all fours. 

“Fuck!” I choke, wheezing as I try to come up to my feet. But he calls the blade back and it knocks me back down as it retreats into his hands. 

“Well wasn’t that fun, kiddo?” He huffs, shoulders rising and falling with much effort as he comes traipsing back over to me. “Can’t say you haven’t made this a wild ride, but I think I’ve got better things to do, don’t you?” He turns his Keyblade back into an arrowgun and takes aim right between my eyes, when suddenly something bright lights the pale skies. Both of us look up into the sky where a massive heart is forming. My eyes go wide, my heart stops.

Vanitas died and I’m not even going to change a thing.

“No!” I shriek, I smash my head into his arrowgun, which only briefly alters his hold, but lets me up. I leap to my feet, he turns the gun into a Keyblade again, he swings at me, but I leap over him, plant a foot straight into his chest and he goes skidding back. The Quartet of 9 is fading from me, I’m losing steam and fast. 

Despite the fact that I can see the muscles in his body trembling, despite the fact that his face is drained and gaunt and his legs look on the edge of collapsing, he’s able to turn his Keyblade back into a gun. He holds it up, takes aim and fires a stream of bullets while my body starts to give. He aims at Lea and for a moment, I fear watching my husband die will be the last thing I do, as debris and ash from my explosives rain down still from the sky, as though coming from Kingdom Hearts itself. 

But Lea will allow Luxu to take no more from him. He dodges the attack, but effectively breaks the chain of the reflect barrier. Luxu teleports out of their range, and my body begs me to lay down and just die.

But I hear it in Luxu’s heart, loud as a gong, chiming, radiating in my mind. He brought the others back once, he can do it again and again and again, and maybe this is the last body he can safely hop into but who is to say he can’t leap into a replica, who’s to say he needs every bit of his heart, who cares if he leaves behind some of it and it dies with Braig, as long as he can bring the others back? Luxu mocks every bit that I've done and informs me, loud and clear, that if he disappears, if I don’t carve him straight out of me with the rest of them, the realm will meet this same sick, distorted end again and again.

I take an Elixir and grab the dark magic sphere from Backbiter and crush it with the handle of my blade, the circular handle that swirls my energy up high through the air.

A bright red smoke glows through the air as it floods into me, filling my nose and mouth, moving past my lungs into my body. My skin glows, hot and pink, my body trembles, my eyes feel like beams are shooting out of them. But I just extend an arm into the air, toward Luxu, and cry out a spell like there are no consequences left to pay.

“Mega Burst!” Lightning jolts out of my fingertips, as though it comes from my very veins, it pours out of my skin and shoots high and thick through the air. Luxu flies higher, but when I catch him, the thunder twists around his neck like a noose. I feel him struggle in the bolts themselves, as though they’re an extension of me. He turns, fear so very real in his visible eye, even at this distance with my senses in hyperdrive, I see. 

I see how very scared he is of this stupid little human.

And I throw him straight into the ground, into the cobblestones, which erupt like a volcano as he crashes down. Someone screams, but the force with which he hits the ground shoots me, like a pendulum’s swing into the air. He shrieks, writhing in the crater created from his impact. I press lightning from his throat all the way across his body, like chains. He howls as he spasms and jerks and jolts. 

When I come back to the ground, I whirl Backbiter into him and jam it straight into his heart.

The Hot Spurs I transmuted course through me, hot and vibrant, but I feel my legs start to tremble, the weight of supporting my body too much to handle. It’s like my veins burst open too and I cry out as I hit the ground, blackness working its way into the edges of my vision.

My hands come to a stop on either side of Luxu’s head. He’s choking. Wheezing and gasping as he looks at me. My arms can’t support me anymore, I start crying, desperate for cool air to fill my lungs. My hair spills around us like a curtain, ash rains on me, the debris of our battle pour across my skin, into my hair and every pebble is like a boulder against overheated skin that suddenly feels too thin.

“You fucked up.” Luxu chokes, his voice wet with the blood leaking out of his mouth, from his chest, pooling around us.

“No, cuz I killed you. And when you’re done, Ava’s next. You will never come back.” I seethe, but he chuckles, the sound bubbles and he starts coughing, more blood coming up from his lips.

“Better mean that, squirt.” He warns me, my eyes flash, and the very real possibility that I will not be able to stand to put my blade into Ava cripples me.

“I do.” I assure him. His eye is losing light fast, but still, it finds mine with every bit the undeserved familiarity and possession and claim Luxu always demands.

“Good girl.” And with that, he takes his arms around me and pushes me right down onto him, onto the other end of my blade. Each spike cuts into me like a hot knife and suddenly, I’m never going to breathe again.

Luxu’s body disintegrates into darkness and I’m alone, in a hole, impaled by my own blade.

The Hot Spur bubbles up inside of me demanding another round, insisting another go. I scream as it tears me up to my feet, begging for another chance to go into overdrive on anything around.

So I teleport back to the edge of the crater, not processing the way my stomach lurches.

Half of the survivors are leaning over the edge of the crater, looking for me. But not Ava. She knows exactly where she’s supposed to be and meets me like we’re old friends, finally coming together after far too long. 

The sound I make as I pull Backbiter out from inside of me is inhuman. Kairi gasps when she turns around, Roxas screams my name, I just whirl my Keyblade around in my hand.

“In the heart.” Ava orders as the Hot Spurs single handedly keep me standing, despite the punctures from my own heart down to my abdomen. 

“I know.” I growl as her eyes trace the wounds on my body, stopping on my chest. Ava’s eyes widen, and I hear in her heart ‘he banished yours too. Luxu really must have loved you’. I don’t feel loved. I feel hot, palpitating, violent energy surging through me, tearing into me just long enough that I can cram my Keyblade straight into Ava’s heart. Her eyes go wide, blood spills down the white of my skort, but she’s the one who sinks to her knees, Backbiter still in her chest.

“Thank you, Rueki.” She closes her eyes and goes up in smoke as the others rush me. And I--

I hit the ground.

No, I fall into someone’s arms. Hot, wonderful, delicious arms, and I think thank Twilight, somehow, I ended up in heaven. But no, the pain’s still jarring me, lurching my tattered legs, which violently beat into the ground as seven hearts sequentially rip out of my own, each angrier than the last, each more desperate to cling to the scraps of what’s left of me. 

I’m still alive but not for long, and when my legs stop thrashing and I go still, I realize that this is it. This is the end. The only way. The Master’s eye has been torn straight out of my Station of Awakening, and within it the stained glass shatters.

I hear Strelitzia’s voice from my dreams, telling me what hold tightest, I must let go of. It's not Lea, at least not in this sense. Sora and Roxas and Xion are only a few of the pairs of blue eyes that fight their way forward, but I know when I look at them that finally, I have taken our empathy link into my own hands, squeezed it once more and cut it free, for good.

“Rueki, Rueks, stay with me, baby!” Lea demands, shaking me in his arms like a rag doll. My mechanical arm is the only one with enough energy to reach up, to brush the skin of his face. His eyes are liquid emerald, my mechanical fingers brush his lips and I part mine, to tell him one more time that this was all for him.

All of this. I did this to keep him safe, to keep the war away from him, to fix the world for him, to try to pave the way for the both of us.

And now, so that he’s spared the unpleasantries of divorcing me.

I part my lips and blood just pours out.

“Rueki!” He chokes. The muscles in my arm finally give out.

And then finally, truly--

It ends.


	61. Chapter 61

LX.

Death looks--well, about the same as it did last time. 

I’m there on a clocktower, watching the edge of a sunset bleed together. Lea’s not with me this time, there is no warmth to simmer into, nothing hot and gentle to close my eyes and let the world end, against. 

Vanitas isn't even here.

There is no comfort in knowing this is finally done for me. The sterility is cold, like an ice pick and very harsh. Maybe they’ll lie and say I died a hero.

I brush a hand back through my hair, working at some knots with my fingers.

“You always did throw a fit when I tired to brush that for you.” Mayris stands beside me, one hand in the pocket of her slacks, wavy red hair pulled back in a low ponytail, eyes on the setting sun.

“If it helps, I throw a fit when anyone brushes it. Still.” We laugh, but the sounds are empty, just echoes, ghosts of rhythms as they bounce off of the clouds. 

“You’re pretty good at this, you know?” She asks. “Dancing just from one edge to the other of death and sleep. Guess that means I popped out a fighter.”

“Yeah.” I murmur. “I guess that’s what happens when you only learn how to be quick and not how to defend. My track record for getting into fights where I don’t die is really terrible.” Still, there's something different about knowing that my death was my choice.

“You’re not afraid though. When Yozora sends me here to recruit, people usually are. They’re scared or sad or angry. It’s a lot of emotion to just lose something so quickly. It was for me. I was terrified. I was fucking pissed. I mean, twenty years later and I’m still fucking pissed.” She shakes her head and finally comes to sit beside me. We’re remarkably similar in stature and posture, it’s almost eerie.

“I’ve always thought it was nice here. I realized that until recently I’d never watched a sunrise. Until I met my husband, I never took time to watch the sunset. Here I can just slow down and look at everything, and just be alone to unravel my own head. It’s not like laying awake in the dark having a panic attack cuz I can’t change anything.” I shake my head.

“Sounds like you’ve had a long, exhausting run.” Mayris says.

“Well, you’re here to recruit me, aren’t you?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow. “That means my run isn’t done if I’ve gotta play the Reaper's game.”

“You don’t have to.” She replies, wrapping her arms around her knee, leaning her soft chin forward onto her leg. “The edges of your future are still blurry. You can come with me and play the Reaper’s Game. I’d really love to stick it to that little prick from Shibuya and have you come out victorious. I’d make you a Game Master next fucking week.” She grins.

“How do you do that?” I ask. “I think I’ve gotten too soft to watch people die, to know they’re failing my missions and that’s why they’re not making it out of the game.”

“Well, you don’t have to fail to not make it out, you saw that. Only the players with the highest points get to come back. The others, the ones that are successful but don’t score as high, they have an option. A lot of them become Reapers, which, you know, will get you promoted to GM if you’re good enough. A lot of people choose that option, for power or companionship or because they don’t want to let go of consciousness.” She explains. “But the third option, you could choose it now if you wanted, you don’t even need to go through the game, and it’s the easiest one. True death. Your body will decay, and then remnants of your heart and soul will go back into your world, into its lifesource. In Shinjuku and Shibuya, we call it Imagination, capital ‘I’. I’ve heard it called soul though, or lifestream, or essence. It’s all the same. Who you are, what you do, where you go, none of it ever really goes away, it’s just dispersed. Who you are will never be gone, not fully. But that’s the option where you get to rest easy. No more war, no more pain. You get to close your eyes and take a breath and you just drift away.” She explains.

“It would be right if I died.” I murmur. “That would be the end to the cycle of violence, that would be justice for the friends of mine I was responsible for killing. A lot of carnage and death happened because I was too selfish and too immature to ride out the storm. I thought I deserved better, that my life should sparkle because some bad shit happened to me but...you can’t scrub the world clean without wiping away the people you love. You can’t pack up and go somewhere new, you still have to take yourself along. I can play this game, I can be a GM, I could maybe even score high enough to come back to life, but I’d still have to be me. I won’t get to just wake up as a new person with no consequences. I think there are friends of mine that will never speak to me again. And that’s if I’m lucky. I caused so much hurt. All because one friend didn’t come back from the dead, and now I have a fucking handful that I’ll never see again. I tore my family apart, and that’s really shitty, because those are the people I love, I would never want to...I didn’t mean to...it was one thing for them to all hate me, but I caused a divide between them. Everything I’ve done, in the name of saving myself, was a mistake.” 

We sit there in the silence, in the hazy clouds of the twilit sky and tears start to spill down my cheek. A cold, calloused hand wipes them away. Mayris offers me a broken smile and cocks her head to the side.

“Chin up, little pumpkin.” She tells me.

“I’m as tall as you now.” I sniffle.

“Maybe taller.” She nods and we both laugh. For the first time I can remember, I lean and rest my head on my mother’s shoulder. She pats my hair and starts to hum and my eyes flutter shut. Memories I didn’t realize I had start to surface, but these ones were naturally buried by time. Her voice, singing me lullabies, reading me stories. The smile of a pointy man with a sharp chin and bright green eyes. These are maybe the only memories I have of my dad, and until recently the only ones I have of my mom, of Mayris. 

“They’re your mistakes. But they’re mistakes, Rueki. That was who you were, you don’t have to take her with you. You have to take this you, the one who is dealing with the consequences but who is wiser, and who has learned. That person made you who you are now, but you don’t need to drag around every moment you’ve ever hated yourself, in a suitcase, like the world’s gonna one day give you permission to drop it off. Drop it now, pumpkin. You got your mom’s blessing, that’s all you need.” She pats my head. “And if this is your way of saying the whole world is a real shit show and too hard to be in, well that’s okay too. I know that’s not really motherly to say, but it’s the logic of the matter. You are dead. The odds that you even get to come back are slim to none. If you choose now, not to scrape through, not to play another game,not have another battle or go through the ringer again, no one could possibly be right to shame you for that. You’ve been through your battles, you’ve lived your destiny, you’ve seen a real, honest end. Playing the Reaper’s Game, surviving it whether as a Reaper or coming back to life, that’s a commitment to picking up that sword day and day, over and over again. It means there’s no shelf you can hide out in for reprieve. It means you’ve gotta keep climbing. Over and over again, you don’t get a quick way out, you don’t get to just stop, you don’t get a fast pass to the top, cuz there isn’t one. It’s all the journey. There’s no such thing as a destination.”

“What’s to stop the Foretellers from hitching a ride inside my heart if I come back?” I ask.

“I don't know the answer to that but...I do know how death works. You've had it happen for real only once before but you saw how it worked. You came back with all the battle scars you earned when you died. The same will hold true this time. Whatever benefits or consequences you earned, you'll keep.” She says, which means that Ven and Vanitas might really, truly be lost to me.

We stare out at the sky, me concentrating on the rise and fall of my mother’s shoulders with every breath she takes, as I turn over the pinks and oranges and yellows in the sky, but most of all the reds. I watch the red light travel, apparently the furthest, and come to terms with the fact that I’m never going to catch it, like the lightning will never catch the storm. It would be endless work, like Mayris said. Over and over again, making the choice to pick up the sword, the promise that my future will never be stagnant, that even if I try inking by a miniscule existence, it will always feel monumental.

I was made for those sorts of things. 

I really just am so very tired. 

I close my eyes and it’s all black again, not dark, not scary, just black. I miss Vanitas, painfully. I miss the chances that I didn’t take, going back would mean a mouthful of regrets being jammed down my throat on the daily. And that’s if I get back. A big, fat, solid if. 

But if I can bring back someone I care for so much, someone who could cling to any shadow at the edge of my heart that he possibly could, someone who no one else ever even bothered to take a chance on, then I have to try.

Mayris pats my back, her hand is ice cold, I start crying. I suck in a breath and look up at the sky a final time, a farewell to innocence, a grief in its own right. My chest is tight. I brush back tears, taking a breath is monumental, untwisting the knots of my thoughts is enormous.

“You’ve made up your mind.” She says and I nod. “There’s my little one.” She pushes herself up and holds a hand out to me. I take it and she pulls me up to my feet, eyes sharp, bright, alive. Just like mine. “Hope you’re good at math. I’m rooting for you, but the new GM’s a real weirdo.” 

I know instantly who she’s talking about.

“Why am I always stuck playing his game?” I throw my hands up. She cackles.

“Shibuya fired him and Yozora kinda thought one Composer’s trash was another’s treasure, you know how it goes.” She beams as the two of us glow under the sunlight. My palm starts to sting, whatever my entry fee is, I know it’ll be gone here within a minute. “You beat this, okay? You win, you go home, and you thank Cid for your dad and I.”

The ground below us gives way to city streets. A new phone appears in my pocket and chimes, my palm ticks.

‘30:00, 29:59, 29:58, 29:57…’


	62. Chapter 62

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! So I announced this on the Instagram page already BUT we've got another story on the way. Nothing about it will be indicative of how this story will end, Cuz this is a high school au, complete with all of the fun, garbage tropes I'm obsessed with. This au will feature Rueki and Vanitas as our main characters Cuz in case you haven't noticed, I'm obsessed with their dynamic. This project will be debuting on December 1st...so don't think you guys are rid of me just yet 😜

LXI.

“Guys, guys! She’s awake.” My eyelids have lead in them. My body throbs, like the entire thing is one desperate, aching pulse point. My abdomen is sore and tight, the teeth of something I can’t see biting into it. I think I’m just going to close my eyes a little bit longer. I think that this bed is so soft and warm and if I just roll over a little closer, Lea’s scalding arms will tighten around me and the rest of the world will cease to exist. 

His name spills from my lips, I go to curl into my husband’s warmth and--

And white hot pain threatens to rip my body open. I gasp, my eyes shoot wide-- my legs aren’t moving. I burst up and in my peripheral vision I see others. Mickey, Kairi and Riku for sure, but my focus flies away from them. I strip the blankets off, throwing them to the ground. Whether Lea is beside me or not, I have no idea, I don’t even care anymore. I look down and I can see my legs, see them limp against the bed I’m inside of. But I don’t feel them.

My jaw goes slack, my shoulders start to heave, my hands ball into fists.

“Hey, Rueki, Rueki, it’s okay, you’re okay now! Lea’s up too!” Sora rushes me, almost sliding into the bed beside me, both hands on my shoulders. In my eyes, his face flashes, skin and hair growing darker, shadows forming beneath his eyes. They go from blue to gold right before me and I scream, throwing my hands over my mouth, trying to stifle it as fast as I can. My skin is ice cold, my eyes burn like toxins are seeping into them. I shove Sora--Vanitas-- away from me with both hands. The screaming starts again, but now I can start grabbing at my legs, squeezing the flesh of my thighs, screams turning into shredded, breathless, gasps as I watch the once taut muscles of my legs move soft between my fingers. The Hot Spurs. The blade that Luxu put straight through both of us. My legs! “She didn’t mean it like that!” Sora tells Donald and Goofy, who crouch at his side at the edge of the bed, looking up at me with that look. I know that look.

Pity. 

Amaya’s at my side now. She takes my face into her hands and focuses my eyes to hers. I start shaking, trembling so hard my body vibrates.

“Look at me.” Her voice is gentle, soft. I shake my head.

“Maya--” I gasp, she strokes my cheek. “My legs.” My voice barely squeaks above a whisper. She strokes my face, hers so neutral, so soft. 

“Would you like a Remedy for the anxiety? Or a Potion? Are you in pain?” She asks.

“I want answers!” I croak out, smacking my hand on the bed. “What the fuck happened to my legs?”

“Rueki, you died.” I move my face from Amaya’s hands when I hear Del’s voice. Next to him are Kairi and Riku. Mickey stands just in front of Riku, I’m in a guest bed in a house that used to be mine. Back in Twilight Town. Looking at people that are still regarding me like a feral animal.

“I wasn’t paralyzed last time I died.” I growl, my vocal chords smack together and I almost feel like I’ve spent a decade inhaling smoke.

“No.” Kairi shakes her head. “You were really, really dead. It’s been a year. We buried you, Lea’s been in a coma. Your body showed up here a few days ago when he woke up, we didn’t know what the hell happened we… we thought someone dug up your grave. We thought there was going to be another war.” She’s gaping at me like she has no idea what to make of my reappearance and somewhere, distantly, I realize the irony of it.

“Can I move?” I ask.

“Gee, Rueki, we weren’t even sure you were gonna wake up.” Mickey confesses. I can’t look at him, I can’t look at anyone. I want to curl in on myself and never emerge but when I try to shift my legs, I can’t even manage that. The inside of my mouth tastes bitter, I’m going to throw up. Never in my wildest dreams would I have fathomed coming back to life to this.

“Can I move?” I repeat, my voice sounds wet and thick and miserable.

“Rueki, none of us have felt you since the war. We have no idea what you--”

“My mom threw me into Shibuya and I played the Reaper’s game and I won, I’m back, I won that fair and square, now what the fuck is wrong with my body?” I shriek. It’s like my words echo through the room, I feel every bit the vibration of them.

Riku’s the only one with the goddamn dignity to say what matters.

“We don’t know.”

My insides drop straight out of me. A grotesque, prevalent thought demands to be heard.

“Aerith’s on her way though!” Sora insists.

“And I’ve been doing what I can with Al Bhed healing until she can come and check you out.” Amaya assures me, patting my leg, through I don’t feel it and simply watching nauseates me.

Omigod, omigod, omigod.

“We think it’s either severe muscle tears from whatever alchemy you did, or nerve damage from Xigbar stabbing you. That didn’t close up, we had to stitch you up when we found you.” Riku explains in a perfectly even voice. I’d rather him scream at me, all things considered.

“We’d be in better shape if Aqua were here.” Mickey says softly, shoulders heaving at his sigh.

“Where is everyone? Is Lea okay?” I demand. With gentle steps, Kairi crosses the room, arms linked behind her back.

“Everyone’s okay, Rueki...well…” She chews her lips.

“Everyone that made it.” Donald says, and suddenly, I’m drowning again. There’s a heart pressed against mine, shuttling pitch black into it. We lay beneath the stars, he fucks me on the ground in a mess of my blood, I hold Vanitas’ hands and we stare into the shadows together in ways that no one else can. His absence pushes me beneath the surface and I let the darkness fill my lungs. I see Sora and the colors shift again, and my skin gets cold but tears start to pour hot and thick down my cheeks.

There’s that thought again, developing a heartbeat, demanding to be heard. I think of the mega burst I cast and how it curled around Luxu’s and dropped him straight into the debris around us. I taste the blood in my mouth again as he puts No Name straight into my stomach. I feel once more, the stripping ache as seven hearts tear their way out of mine and leave holes in their wake.

I think of touching Lea’s face and losing feeling as I’m dragged under.

I can’t keep it out.

“Lea’s vitals have always been good.” Kairi promises me.

“We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him.” Goofy says, but I know very well the reason my estranged husband couldn’t wake up until I did and I know that once more, the fault is entirely mine. 

“Roxas, Xion, Skuld and Isa are upstairs with him.” Del says. Upstairs. In the bed we used to share.

I’ve made a mistake. This is never not going to hurt. This is worse than I could've ever imagined.

“Where are Aqua and Terra?” I ask. “And Emyd and Elrena and Ludor.”

“Ludor, Emyd and Elrena have been assisting in the reconstruction of the worlds you and Vanitas brought back when you summoned Kingdom Hearts.” Mickey tells me, with every bit of optimism I could ever expect from him. Like one last ditch move somehow wipes away every bit of hurt I rained down on all of us.

“And Aqua and Terra?” I ask. Amaya’s eyes go hard.

“You don’t need to ask about her, she's very selfish, we’re better without her.” She says, leaving very little room for argument. Del’s eyes soften a little, Riku looks at the ground, there’s that bitterness again.

“She didn’t want to heal me.” I predict. No one in the room looks at me, but when eyes come up from the ground, Riku’s are the first.

“She says she doesn’t want to see you.” He says. There are the tears again, so hot they burn my skin like acid.

“Right. Of course, she should heal.” I choke out, though I realize immediately, it’s more. “She doesn’t want to see me ever again.” It’s worse, I realize, as one by one they start to look up. “She thinks I should have stayed dead.”

“She’s hurting over Ven dying.” Sora explains, like I need to hear it.

“Terra is trying to remind her that everyone deserves redemption as long as they show they’ve changed, we know you have, Rueki!” Goofy promises.

“I don’t think it helped seeing how much more hurt you were over Vanitas.” Donald confesses. Sora and Goofy shoot him narrow eyed glares as bile rises in my throat. I don't even risk voicing my hope.

“Right. Yeah. Okay.” I sputter. “I think I could use some more sleep, could you guys leave, I want to rest.”

“Rueki…” Del trails off.

“Don’t let Aqua affect you, she acts like she’s the only one who has ever lost anyone and she told me just how little she did for you when Kairi died, you don’t need someone in your life who won’t support you!” Amaya insists as I lower myself onto my pillow, biting back a sigh when my tears stop spilling into the baby hairs by my temples and onto the cloth instead.

“It’s fine.” I say. “I just want some space while I rest.” I beg, and then, with every bit of strength my upper body has, I turn over, wincing from the strain of the stitches carefully laced through my abdomen. When finally, my eyes are focused on the wall that backs up to the bed, I choke out a whisper “Please.”

Amaya rubs my back.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Rueki. All of us are here for you. Aerith and Cid are so excited to see you, when Ludor, Emyd and Elrena found out you were alive, they went to Radiant Garden to head over with them. Roxas didn’t leave your bedside until Lea woke up, we all love you so much.” She promises me.

“None of us can imagine what you’re going through. We all just want you to get better, that’s all you need to focus on now. The world’s in great shape, the only thing that could make it better is you being back to yourself.” Mickey assures me.

“Your spells are amazing, I can’t wait to practice with you!” Donald cheers.

“You’re so strong, I just know you’ll pull through this in no time.” Goofy encourages.

“Aerith is going to take really good care of you, she’ll know what to do. It’s so good to have you back, Rueki.” Sora insists.

“If you need anything, nothings ever gonna change for us. We love the hell outta you, Rueki. We’re gonna be there for you every step of the way.” Del swears.

“Don’t let yourself feel any worse about this, Rueki. Aqua’s allowed to be mad, but you set everything right, and you did finally tip the balance perfectly. If you don’t deserve our support, then quite frankly, Terra, Isa and I don’t either.” Riku pats my head.

One by one, they leave me in broken silence to choke on the sobs that won’t go down.

I could’ve stayed gone. I fought with tooth and nail to live, to survive. I could’ve breezed into death as Imagination, as an essence. I could’ve stayed with with my mom and Yozora and Hanekoma, I could’ve been Joshua’s Conductor and we would’ve all spent the days in Wildkat, delighting in delicious banter as we controlled the sway of energy in our world.

I fought to live. I shouldn’t have.

Soft skin brushes my arms. Small breasts press to my back, silky hair brushes across my shoulders as arms encircle my waist.

“Can’t you just go?” I choke.

“Fuck. Off.” Kairi whispers in soft syllables behind my ear. I tremble.

“Kai, I--” I can’t stop them any more than the tears, any more than the prevalent throughout that me choosing to live was a mistake. The words that want to come out of me do, like a storm of jumbled thoughts. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I was so mad at you for so long, and I know I shoved your kindness anyway, you should be mad at me, you should hate me so much, but I want you to know I never would’ve hurt you and I’m just… I don’t know how to be any more sorry or to show how bad I feel about--”

I don’t even think she can understand what I’m saying anymore, the way it comes out, but she starts to kiss my shoulders and nuzzles my neck.

“Stop.” She pleads. “I’m mad at you. I’m so mad I feel like it’s going to burst out of me, for the first time since I was little, I’m damn pissed.” I should have stayed dead. “But you will never not be my best friend. What you did isn’t who you are. I love you, Rueki, so I’m gonna be mad at you when you're better, I’m gonna kick your ass. But until then, just know what Del said is true. I’m your best friend. Nothing’s ever going to change for us, no matter how mad someone else is at you. There’s nothing you could ever do that would stop me from loving you.”

We cry together in bed, I don’t know which of us feels it harder. I don’t know what ‘it’ is. Impossible rage, desperation, sadness, grief. But for the first time ever, we both feel all of it. And we cry ourselves into actual exhaustion.

\--

I hate that Riku has to carry me out into the living room. Despite the way I strain the muscles in my back, trying with everything in me to push myself to my feet, I hit the ground every time I try to stand up, like the legs attached to me are nothing but air. Kairi and Amaya come to my side, helping me dress in something more covering and less grizzled than the tattered skort and slashed shirt I’m still dressed in. I fucking stink, I need a shower and my hair is absolutely matted with blood and ash.

“Ienzo’s coming too, that we we can see what’s going on with your heart.” Mickey assures me and I smile weakly at him, because I already know my heart is fragile and fragmented. Without the foretellers, with the empathy link fully released in Ava’s death, with all the light I let Luxu give me, I feel ready to crumble. But if there is even one dark corner left in it...

Lea hasn't come down yet. Nor Roxas, Xion, Isa or Skuld. 

“We didn’t tell them you were awake yet.” Amaya admits. “That way you could have some privacy to react to whatever news Aerith and Ienzo give you.”

Basically, Lea doesn’t need to get guilted into staying with me if I have an absolute meltdown. Again.

I smile and nod and Kairi laces her fingers through mine as she takes a seat next to me, an anchor that I certainly don’t deserve.

“These are people that love you. They can’t wait to see you.” Kairi, promises me. I nod and squeeze her hand back.

The door to my home bursts open, in the reflection of the glass door, I see m with wild, knotted hair, a hollowed out face, bruises all over my body and reddened eyes. I guess it shouldn’t be a shock that I was an actual corpse until a little while ago. I look like one, still.

Elrena is the first one through the door, her fingers laced through Emyd’s. Emyd actually yelps and leaps back into Ienzo when he sees me.

“Come on you big coward.” Elrena huffs.

“Sorry.” Emyd flushes. This must be saying something, considering he was the one who brought me back after Saix mutilated me. Ludor and Ienzo are in next and their reactions aren’t much better, I want to bury myself, but Kairi squeezes my hand so hard it starts to cut off circulation. My brow comes together, I look at her and she nods at me. I wonder if I could possibly look worse if I hid my face in Kairi’s shoulder. The whole house seems to creak as my anxieties settle in.

Aerith enters, she touches her face but otherwise has the decency not to look too hard at me. She and Amaya greet with arms around each other, and Aerith comes to sit at my side.

The door opens one last time. With sluggish footsteps, heavy boots enter the house, my godfather attached to them. I pinch my eyes shut. I’ve been dead for a year. Cid grieved my parents and was likely there when they buried me. None of this is fair to him.

I force my eyes back open, they lock onto his blue ones, my mouth goes dry. He looks so much older. Cid’s mouth opens once, twice, a third time and no sound comes out.

“Well?” He finally demands when he’s able to produce sound. “All that shit you put me through and you can’t even stand up to face me?” 

My face reddens.

“I’m sorry. I can’t.” I hang my head and bite my lips.

“Cid…” Kairi tries.

“Shut it, Kai.” He orders. “You can’t even stand up and look me in the eye and tell me you’re sorry for what the hell you did?”

“Cid…” I choke as I finally look back up to him. “Cid, I can’t stand.”

He goes ghostly white. I realize very quickly that no one told Cid exactly why Aerith and Ienzo needed to come with him.

Without another word, Cid rushes his in, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.

“You’re a real fucking piece of work.” He tells me.

“I know.” I choke. 

“You keep me in the dark like I’m some goddamn idiot and then cop out by getting yourself killed before you can face me?” He demands and I nod.

“I’m sorry.” I promise him.

“Don’t be sorry, just tell me, kid! Tell me what was so bad you couldn’t...you couldn’t tell the guy who raised you?” He shouts and again, it’s like the whole house shifts, snapping at me along with him. I wince and grab a hold onto Cid’s arm.

“Please don’t make me,” I shake my head.

“Cid, now might not be the time…” Aerith tries, but when Cid releases me from the impossible hug, he holds a hand up to Aerith.

“Mind your business.” He orders. “Rueki, girl, so help me, look me in the eye and be done with the damn secrets!”

And it all bubbles out.

“Well fuck, where do you want me to start, the fact that Braig groomed me? Or that I fucked him because for a while, I used light magic as a drug and he supplied it and now my heart is falling the hell apart? Do you want me to tell you that I left Lea because I misheard a conversation between him and Skuld or do you want me to tell you that I went on an absolute spree of killing off worlds and taking light from princesses because I kept hoping, seriously hoping that whatever happened next would be better? Or maybe we move onto the fact that I was involved with the human embodiment of darkness not because I loved him, but because he was the only person around who felt as utterly rejected by the people he longed for as me, and now that he’s dead I feel more alone than ever? Maybe none of that even matters and you want to hear about how superhumans manipulated me and raised me for the slaughter, but is that really a big deal when half the fucking kids I know were raised for the same thing? I could tell you about how Braig tampered with mom and dad’s fuel tank and mom’s in charge of purgatory and how I had a chance to die peacefully but I didn’t take it, I fought and I won some stupid fucking game for dead people and now I’m back and I--I can’t even fucking walk or dress myself. And I wish--I wish--”

I can’t say it, I don’t even get the chance.

Someone curses behind me. I hold my breath. Kairi grabs my face and puts it to her shoulder. She kisses my temple, Amaya pats my cheek.

Cid heaves a giant sigh and hugs me tight and whispers something funny about too much information and everyone laughs this stupid, uneasy laugh.

But I know it was Lea who cursed the second I stop speaking. And even with my face so thoroughly hidden from the world, I can still see the shock of red in my peripheral vision as he takes in every word I said, hears everything I’ve done and…

And walks right out the back door.


	63. Chapter 63

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drunk!Sam gives you guys a surprise update. You guys should not be surprised. I'm working on a Kinktober thing to add to 'Explosive' at the end of the month and porn is just a lot easier to write drunk.  
Anyway, I'm emotional over this story so just be warned, these next two chapters are real dark. Like maybe the darkest chapters I've ever written? Kinda up to interpretation I guess but maybe get yourselves a drink and cry with me and Rueki

LXII.

Ienzo hooks my arms up to some sort of portable machine, Aerith sets her mystical hands on my forehead. Lea does not come back into the room, Isa and Skuld disappeared with him, but Roxas and Xion remain. I stare with hollow eyes up at the ceiling wondering what the hell I’ve done to myself.

“This machine will work much like the last one I set you up with, Rueki. If there are any problems located within your heart, we’ll be able to view and hopefully fix them.” Ienzo tells me though he’s particularly skittish around me. I wait on the seconds like they are lifetimes, waiting for even just one dark corner of my heart. I don’t respond, Aerith touches my face, looking into my eyes as though searching for some trace of the delightful dumpster fire she got drinks with in Midgar. I don’t even feel like the same person.

Roxas squeezes my one hand. Xion sits with hers in her lap, eyes pointedly fixed on where her boyfriend’s body connects to mine. I keep trying to jerk Roxas away, but the more distance I create, the harder he holds on and the more like a glare Xion’s gaze becomes so I just stop fighting and beg these moments to end.

Asking for privacy would be too much when I spent the last year of my life in seclusion and died shortly after. Trying to muster up some sort of enthusiastic response when I fear most what my heart is going to look like, is too much for me, so I sit here like a puppet while Ienzo configures the settings of this machine on his phone and Aerith keeps waving her hands over me. My phone, the one that appeared in my pocket on Shinjuku remains, though I haven't looked at it since it appeared, other than to read mission mail.

“Something’s really off, Rueki. What kind of magic did you use on your body?” Aerith asks me, brow knitting together. Amaya chews her lip and looks to Aerith like she has the answers to everything. Hope has made my friends desperate. I guess that’s what sets me apart, this time. The last of my hope resides in a heart I have no faith in. Or maybe it already died with my ability to move, maybe it died when I realized that I came back to life just to keep tearing my friends apart. Aqua and Amaya probably broke up because of me. Xion is glaring daggers at Roxas and I, and I get the distinct impression that she doesn’t do that to every girl in the world. I can’t help myself. All I’m capable of doing is ruining the lives of everyone around me…

But maybe not Vanitas. If there's a chance in hell I can bring him back, I can absolve that all, ensuring the two of us run so far nothing in the realm can hurt us again.

I don’t respond, so Aerith looks pleadingly up at Ienzo.

“I’ll be just a moment, I’m going to cast my phone to your television, that way you’re able to see clearer, the status of your heart.” Ienzo says, but what he means is people that will be able to supervise me will be able to see my heart, because I’m dangerously ill equipped to take care of it, and that’s not a secret to anyone in this room.

I count in my head, down from one hundred. I’m at seventy when a light flashes on the television screen. I’m at sixty-two by time the shock sets in. I’m at fifty by time someone speaks.

“Rueki...your heart…” Del chokes. I risk looking up. It’s exactly as bad as I suspected. And then worse.

My heart is projected on the television screen, Station of Awakening and all. If the seven massive holes in my heart weren’t enough, the jagged edges absolutely could be. And if that weren’t enough, the fact that everything that used to look like stained glass now looks thin and breakable like tissue paper, could be. What I hate most is where Lea and I used to meet in my Station of Awakening, is now cracked. Not shattered like the rest of my heart, but crackling just enough to make me ache. So publically, I get to watch the damage done to our souls and my heart in consequence. 

And...and in it all, there's not even a single shadow. I taste bile.

“I had to kill seven hearts that were inside of mine to make sure the Foretellers didn’t return, and I had to break off the empathy link so that Roxas, Xion and Sora wouldn’t go down with me. Top that off with the fact that I ruined my marriage to my soulmate and developed a tolerance for light magic, which everyone says is terrible for you, and there you go. About par for the course.” I say flatly, staring up at the screen in front of me like the rudest wake up call.

I should not have come back, the quality of life I could possibly have like this is going to be abysmal, when will I stop trying to take fate into my own hands and learn that some things are better left untouched? 

I grab a fistful of the pillow on the other side of me and suck in a breath.

“This is...it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” Ienzo breathes. “I’m going to have to look further into this, and with our research being so scattered after Ansem the Wise passed--”

“Ansem’s dead?” I ask, desperate to deflect from the fact that I know my heart is... 

“You haven’t told her?” Aerith’s eyes flick to Del, who flushes.

“I didn’t think it was really the time.” Del murmurs.

“Could someone just tell me?” I grunt. 

“Del’s the King of Radiant Garden, he's helping Kairi, Riku and Sora start up a Keyblade training school out the like Terra and Aqua have in the Land of Departure and Ludor and Skuld have out here, but even beyond that he's done so much for the world. After Ansem the Wise was killed, Del did a lot to assist Radiant Garden. He was unanimously elected to be the new ruler.” Ienzo explains, my stomach feels like it’s going to drop out of me.

“How did Ansem the Wise die?” I ask.

“Depends who you ask.” Roxas grumbles.

“He was mauled by a bear.” Xion says flatly, eyes flashing as she looks at her boyfriend. 

Mauled by a bear. I’m sure that’s exactly what it would look like if Isa went berserk after I texted him and then proceeded to tear him apart with his bare hands. 

There’s not a single positive thing I can do for the people around me. How many deaths am I responsible for in some way or another?

“And tragically, all of his research was in places only he was aware of. We’re scouring the castle, but it is a rather expansive area to search. I’d be happy to ask Even what can be done to act as a filler for gaps in a heart, or even what could strengthen it after overexposure to light magic. I’m sure there’s plenty of tests we can run on replica hearts, and Xion has been incredibly helpful in our replica program.” Ienzo beams at the younger woman, who flushes and tucks her hair behind her ear.

“Don’t bother.” I mutter, looking toward the kitchen, out the back door Lea disappeared through. “It’s unsalvaegable, I’m not stupid.” 

“You sound awfully pessimistic.” Aerith makes a face.

“She sounds like--” Elrena begins but clamps her jaw shut. I don’t need her to finish her sentence, I hear his name echoed loud and clear in my head, reverberating off the insides of my brain like a feral ping pong ball, ricocheting and wreaking chaos everywhere it tears through.

Vanitas, _Vanitas_, VANITAS!

His name roars in my mind and tears start bursting hot down my cheeks again. I finally jerk my hand free of Roxas’, he chokes a little and flinches, but I just wipe away the stupid fucking tears and put my face into my hands.

He died, he died for me, he died to fix the mess I made because I couldn’t live in a world where I was responsible for killing Kairi. He died and it’s all my fault. He died and left me alone like everyone does, like Axel did, like Kairi did, like every time I think I’ve finally closed my hands around something or someone that has taken a glimpse into my soul, showed me colors I didn’t realize existed elsewhere, spoke a clandestine, private language into my ear, they slip away and I’m in the dust with only the consequences of my actions. People break up because of me, people hurt because of me, people die because of me, and somehow I tricked myself into thinking life was worth living.

I want to push myself off the couch and book it out the back door, I want to run so far and fast that my legs almost topple over themselves, I want to collide smack in the middle of the arms of a young man who will tell me I’m stupid and call me names and punch me in the face until my teeth fall out, and make me forget what the pain in my heart feels like because his is that much worse. 

I just don’t want to feel this alone.

“I just need my legs to work, that’s all, so whatever we’ve gotta do there, let’s do it.” I say, stubbornly, knowing full well that gazes are being exchanged, that people are going to talk the second I can pick myself up and get out of this room. And that’s fine, they can talk as much as they want, as long as I’m able to run to Lea, get down on my knees and beg him to just talk to me--and hope against all hope that talking leads to forgiveness-- then I don’t care what anyone else does. 

“Um…” Aerith is making a face when I come up for air, it leaves a lot to be desired. “I don’t know how long that could take…it looks like you've got a combination of nerve and muscle damage and while you can strengthen the muscles, the nerves might be trickier.”

“I do have something to assist you, Rueki, but the damage you did to your body, scientifically speaking, you should be happy if you have any feeling below the waist.” Ienzo admits and my face burns.

Am I not able to… can I not even… 

The sudden conquest for pleasure for the sake of pleasure feels absolutely hopeless when I contemplate if I’ll ever be able to have an orgasm again. My breath hitches in my throat

“Then what was the point?” I demand, but shut my mouth instantly. I’m not going to scream with my godfather and my friends who forgave me when I didn’t deserve it and other friends who turned sides against the Foretellers with me, that I don’t see a point in having suffered through a Reaper’s Game if I’m never going to be able to move. “Then why even come here?” There, that covers it sufficiently, but Roxas is reaching for my hand again and I recoil, pressing my cheek into the back of the sofa. Ienzo is going to give me some dumb reason, people are going to say nice things like the mean them and act sweet and tell me they’ll keep in touch and hope I feel better, and if they’re lucky they’ll never speak to me again, and if I’m lucky, I’ll tear them and their relationships with all their loved ones apart, like a deviant child picking off the legs of a spider.

“To see what we could do for your heart. And what we could do to help you gain some sense of mobility.” Aerith brushes some of my dirty hair out of my face, I pinch my eyes shut, like I can make them leave collectively if I just block them out. Since I can’t pick myself up, since I can’t move on my own, since it’s likely I never will again, since there’s a very high chance I will never feel the most physically intense pleasure I have ever known again. Suddenly I see everything disappearing before my eyes. Why would Lea want to turn into his estranged wife’s caretaker, how would anyone be able to put up with me, how could I do anything but maybe waste away in Amaya’s house. I can’t work with Reno, that’s for sure, though I’ve been dead a year, I’m certainly off his radar. I watch every scrap of hope I had that propelled me through the Reaper’s Game slip between my fingers as easily as water.

Dear Twilight, I can’t do this.

“As I said, Rueki, I have a device that you might find helpful, while it won’t help repair the nerve damage done, it will support your movement to an extent. You’ll need a fair amount of Elixir in the beginning to aid you, I’m sure, but if there is anything that can be done to strengthen your muscles and eventually allow you to control them, this would be it. It is electrical, so you won’t be able to get wet while it’s attached, but the mechanics in it should allow you to walk upright, even if your body won’t necessarily allow that. Think of it as a prosthetic skeleton.” Ienzo offers.

Right, a prosthetic skeleton. Because even if I were to get prosthetic legs, it wouldn’t mean anything, because what nerves would Hojo even attach them to? The ones I destroyed on my spree to get revenge for someone...for…

“You said you guys have been doing research on the replica program…” I trail off, tasting already how hopeless this conquest is.

“Yes, very much, it offers for testing that doesn’t require human specimens, as I said, we’ll perform extensive tests on their synthetic nerves to see how yours would respond to--” Ienzo starts, excitement --anxiety --quickening his tone, I open my eyes, my head rolls back, I stare at the ceiling. 

“Has anyone tried to put Ven and Vanitas into one? All they are is light and darkness, if someone summoned Kingdom Hearts, I could extract them, we could put them into one body and split them up again and they could both be back.” I suggest. The air goes silent and stiff, as though it has somehow grown impossibly dense from my words alone.

“No, no one’s tried that.” Xion says, very flatly, with an air of finality to her statement.

“You said it yourself, the empathy link is gone.” Sora reminds me.

“Plus, you know what that would entail, the cost to drain energy from Kingdom Hearts itself…” Del trails off. He’s right, it could cost everything. It would cost everything, but I don’t think I can do this without the person who looked at the roughest edges of me and still would’ve gone to the edge of the world to watch it end, just with me. The person that took me in my darkest times, because they were my darkest times, because I was low and sunken in and beaten down just like him. 

Hanekoma and Joshua mentioned that with a soulmate comes true understanding, but what happens when mine has outgrown me, when he keeps traveling too far and doesn’t just slip but dashes away from me and leaves me like I’m only a mere, short lived chapter in his epic saga? I understand that those are the moments that I’ll reach for any substitute to hold my hand, but the one substitute to genuine understanding is somewhere inside the world’s heart, far away from mine. I'm never gonna see him again…

“Okay, sure, um can we just do these leg things, I wanna go for a walk.” I announce, sucking in a breath.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Ienzo delights--spits out because he’s too uncomfortable around me to pretend he doesn’t believe my new ‘enthusiasm’-- as he pulls some sort of case off of the coffee table. From within it, he procures two jointed sticks, black and flat. “Aerith, if you wouldn’t mind helping me…” Ienzo begins and she just moves over to me without the sort of apprehension everyone else has. She hooks an arm around my middle and shifts me onto one side like a rag doll, and I want to scream that I’m strong enough to still do this, but the fact of the matter is no one’s going to let me go if I don’t force myself through this with gritted teeth and an aching heart. I can hear Luxu mocking me in the back of my head, his voice slithering cold and penetrating up my spine until it has infected my mind like a virus.

‘You’re an anvil, squirt. And now they really do have to lug you around’.

Ienzo presses one of the joints into my hip, lining it up perfectly with where my hip bone pivots in its socket, Aerith casts a gentle spell and I realize I’m being shocked. I grip the couch like a vice to stop myself from redirecting it back into her, there are the goddamn tears again. I suck in a breath.

“I’m so sorry, Rueki, it’ll only be a few more.” Aerith promises me.

“It’s fine.” I choke out. “It’s nothing, this feels like nothing.” I focus on Luxu’s voice in my head until I can’t feel physical sensation anymore, and at the very least, it stops me from crying because I will not shed a fucking tear for him. 

She shocks the joints of the device into my knee and ankle joints then they repeat the process after shifting me onto the other side. 

“This part shouldn’t hurt at all.” Aerith smiles softly at me as she takes some syringes filled with red liquid out of Ienzo’s case. Elixir. She injects my legs throughout the thigh and calf muscles, and while I’m grieving the fact that this could be what my life looks like every day until the universe has the mercy to kill me, someone chokes.

“Uh...should her heart be doing that?” Emyd asks. Everyone turns and stares at the screen, even me, but it’s not the flash of hope that my heart repairs itself or the empathy link lights back up, shiny and fresh and I can use it to pull Ven and Vanitas back from their half deaths. In fact, it’s rather the opposite. My heart pulses, vibrant and red, the redness floods to the areas cracked in my heart, then drains away, my mouth goes dry.

“Elixir won’t work on me anymore.” I breathe, eyes wide and horrified.

“No, this has to be some type of fluke, I’m certain.” Ienzo shakes his head, so Aerith goes about injecting me in double doses and then triple and the result is still the same. She gets to the fourth doses and I’m hot, burning up from head to toe, blood feeling like it’s going to sear right through my skin. But I shift a leg out in front of me experimentally. Everyone rejoices and I just think about how being shot up on this much Elixir, constantly, is going to kill me. All because it’s flooding to my heart to repair the damage I did to it. It won’t be a pretty death, it won’t be a painless death, it won’t even be a quick death. I will have to trade getting violently ill for the ability to maybe keep walking if nothing changes within six months. I really can’t live like this.

But I push myself up, standing with all of the grace of a newborn doe. My legs wobble, I grab onto the arm of the couch, too many arms extend for me and I shake my head. No, no, I’m not doing this, I can’t have my friends escorting me across the realm every day until the Elixir kills me, I can’t literally become their anvil, tying them to the ground when they were all made to soar. 

Roxas doesn’t seem to give a quarter of a fuck about reading the room, as per usual. Something I very much adored about him, I now want to berate him for as he sweeps in, wraps an arm beneath both of mine and supports me.

“I can walk.” I promise him as I head for the back door.

“My best friend came back to life after a year of being dead, let me be happy about it for a minute.” He pleads to me with this puppy dog look and these big blue eyes. In them I see Ven, I see my failures, a Prince Charming that I sacrificed, his darker half who sacrificed himself for me. I almost go completely limp in Roxas’ arms from sheer lack of will, but stubbornly, force myself forward until we’re at least out the door and it’s shut behind us.

“You can go back inside, kid, the gossip’s going to be starting and it’s a lot more fun than being here with me.” I tell him.

“Can you just stop being such a grumpy ass for a few minutes?” He asks me. I raise my eyebrows.

“No.” I say flatly. 

“Well, do it anyway.” He demands, and he flat out handles me so that we’re facing each other, him still cupping the tops of my arms, my mouth curls into a frown. 

“I want to be alone.” I tell him.

“I don’t think you should be.” He counters, like somehow this changes everything, like this is going to be the fucking aha moment for me. I know no one trusts me to handle myself, I know no one is ever going to trust me to again and I know now that I’m not even going to be able to handle myself again, so is one fucking moment to myself too much to ask? He gives me a look like clearly it is. But I just want him to go away. And this is no different than sleeping with Luxu, then clearing my mind when the Master told me to kill Kairi, just so I could kill him. It’s just playing the game and by now it’s the only thing I have left.

“Fine, whatever, let’s walk then.” I just shake my head and take a step into the ground, hating the way it feels like it’s going to utterly cripple me with each movement. I’ve taken no more than fifteen steps and already my body is screaming in desperation. Each step I take is screaming agony, and the further toward the woodsy area of the backyard we go, the more I realize I’m searching for Lea in each red leaf in the trees. It’s like I’ve convinced myself that if I see him, that somehow I’ll be able to breathe him in and this will go away, that he will find the words to say to make this right, because he always does, even when I deserve it the least.

“Are you going to say anything?” Roxas asks me. I respond by not responding, he sighs. “I know you’re not happy you’re alive, but I really am.”

I pause, jamming my fingernails into the palm of my flesh hand until they break the skin.

“You don’t know a fucking thing, you’re not in my heart anymore, so you should probably stay out of it.” I don’t even care about the way my words cut, I want to claw him hard enough that he drops me like some sort of feral cat and lets me slink off to die.

“I know what your heart looks like, I know what it used to look like. And it looks like it hurts. You probably didn’t try to come back to life to have your body…” He trails off and I realize he dares not speak it. I pinch my eyes shut and suck in a breath, trying to taste what used to be so light and crisp and delicious about Twilight Town, but whatever used to appeal, doesn’t anymore.

“How’d you fix the worlds?” I ask. I open my eyes, he kicks leaves on the ground. “How'd you bring this place back?”

“When Kingdom Hearts was fully formed, we just unlocked it and everything that was sealed by the darkness was restored.” Roxas says. “Can we just talk for a few minutes...like we did when you wanted to be my friend?” I don’t think that’s a possibility, I look at him and he takes on the distinct expression like I just kicked his puppy. “I’m really happy you’re alive. I didn’t feel like anything was right without you, I didn’t feel like I was me without you.” He admits and I want to crush that train of thought like I did my phone back in Midgar.

“You don’t need me to be you, Roxas.” I just say, quickly.

“I don’t really remember a time when our hearts weren’t connected.” He explains, eyes hitting the ground. I want to slither away from his touch, feeling too exposed, too vulnerable. “I don’t like not feeling connected to you.”

“All that connection ever did was screw with us.” I snap, feeling my face go red as I think of Ava and the way she tied it around my neck like a noose.

“You used it to help me.” He counters.

“You mean like when I contemplated killing you in the data Twilight Town? I’m a great fucking friend, Roxas.” I hiss.

“What about when you tried to kill Saix to help me? Or when you used it to sort my memories and give me the spark to come home?” He shifts me so that all of my weight is in his hands and his eyes are too intense as they bear into me. “You’re my favorite person, Rueki. And everyone thinks that means I have some big, stupid crush on you, but it’s not that at all and if she...if she wants to get mad about that, then she just doesn’t remember what it felt like, like I do. You kept us safe when the whole world tried to get us.” I don’t need to ask who ‘she’ is. I broke up Amaya and Aqua by being this toxic, insufferable monster and Xion and Roxas are going to be my next casualties, everything I touch dies. “You protected us for so long, and I just really need you to know that you can stop, you can rest now, Rueki, I’ve got you, whatever you need. You fought for so long and I just… you’re not ever gonna feel alone like you did again. I promise, I really promise.” He puts his arms around me and puts my cheek to his chest and I just let him, because he’s my best friend and this is the kind of thing best friends do, and best friends don’t throw their friends to the ground and storm away and tell their best friends to forget them because all I’m capable of doing is ruining his life and if he doesn’t run, I’m going to make him.

He lets me go.

“Can we go back inside, I need more Elixir.” I say, because I want to combust so bad it hurts. He walks me back in. Everyone is still huddled between the living room and the kitchen, Amaya speaks to Aerith but her eyes go bright and she looks up when I walk in.

“How was your walk?” She asks, like I’m going to answer exactly how she wants me to.

“Rueki needs more Elixir.” Roxas says.

“Of course.” Aerith grins, like she’s just doing the lord’s work, saving me. She fishes for a couple from the case and presses a few into me until I can stand without Roxas’ support.

“So, I was thinking we could head out in the morning, what do you need to pack up, I could help?” Amaya asks and my eyes flash. “Oh, I’m sorry. When Lea came back inside, he said he ran into you on your walk and that you decided you were gonna stay with me and recuperate while he worked on the house…” 

That’s what Lea said. When he pointedly avoided running into me and Roxas. Which means he wants me as far from him as humanly possible.

“Nope, that is definitely what we discussed I just didn’t realize we were leaving so soon, I’ll go pack now.” I say and start stumbling toward the stairs.

“Rueki--” Roxas tries, but I force myself to teleport straight up the stairs and as far away from them as possible. I’m in the bathroom attached to the bedroom, our bedroom, the attached door is shut behind me and I hit the ground, hands in my hair, tears burning down my dirty cheeks. Omigod, omigod, what did I do? I can’t do this, I can’t--

I look at Lea’s cologne on the counter, at Lea’s aftershave, at Lea’s shampoo and conditioner and styling products and mine left behind still and I want to--

I want to tear them apart. I smash a bottle of perfume against the countertop and watch the liquid pour out. I take my eyeliner, my lipstick, my mascara and throw them in the trash. I crack my hairbrush over the spilled perfume on the countertop. I punch the fucking thing until my knuckles are sore and want to punch the thing staring at me in the mirror just so I can feel the glass splinter across my metal hand. I pour my shampoo bottles down the sink, I pick up my shaving cream and jam it into the trash with both hands, like I’m trying to drown it. I grab my razor and…

It’s still sharp, my veins could be a problem but...but I could...it wouldn’t even be hard...I--

No, no, no, no. Not while there’s a scrap of hope. Not when Lea promised me we would talk, not when he’s always so good at finding the right thing to say, not when he saves me from myself so consistently, it’s baffling. I force myself to breathe huge, staggering breaths as I clean up the mess of glass, clean the perfume off the counter, crack the window to air out the smell and then, I pick myself up and stumble toward the bedroom. I throw the door open and that fucking mark on my hip screams louder than any injury. Lea lays sideways across the bed, legs dangling off the side, looking careworn but otherwise no worse for the wear. My heart could burst out of my chest, rupture completely and I wouldn’t even notice.

“You’re okay.” And it’s like I’m finally breathing again, wringing my hands from beneath the door frame, feeling cool metal brush across the scar on my knuckles. 

Lea’s eyes find mine, the room feels so empty, and while that would normally just give my guilty conscience room to stretch and expand, right now I’m just so focused on how he looks in the gentle glow of the twilight spun skies. I destroyed this world, but he glows in it.

“Somehow, I get the feeling you had something to do with that.” He makes a face. “Which is kind of screwed up, cuz you died.”

I nod.

“Well I had to play the Reaper's Game to come back.” I admit. 

“I was your entry fee.” He predicts. I color. Because he knows what that means, that he is the most precious thing in the world to me and that meant I had to gamble his life for the chance to come back and thank Twilight I won, because if I didn't, he never would've woken.

“I mean...yeah.” It goes without saying, Lea is, was and always will be the thing I value most, but I didn't realize how literally I could put his life in the line. All I'm capable of is taking, all I can do is spread decay. “I didn’t ask for that, you know? Your life shouldn’t be dependent on mine, I didn’t want that.” 

“Yeah, I know.” He says, but I know it doesn’t make a difference and I know that our feelings about our soul are probably more different than ever. 

“I’m...happy you guys could bring this world back.” I bite my lips.

“Yeah. Guess Ven dying was worth it.” He says, bitterly. My face grows cold.

“I never wanted that.” I remind him.

“Yeah, I know.” He says, dryly. “You were pretty broken up about Vanitas.”

“Well, someone should cry for him.” I start to twist my hands again, he leans back in the bed, folding his arms behind his head, gaze flickering to the ceiling. “You said we'd talk when this is over.” 

“What else is there to say that you didn't say downstairs?” He asks. Why am I not surprised that the things that came out of my mouth somehow ruined all the promise that we had left. 

“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about everything. You were right, I was acting out of hurt. I was cruel to you, to everyone and I--” My voice catches in my throat, I wince as I try to find it again just willing it to stay strong. “I was very wrong. I have a lot of things I think I need to sort out. And if you told Amaya that I'm leaving cuz you can't stand to look at me anymore, then I want you to know I understand.”

“Are you staying in Transmute City, then?” He asks. I notice how still his face is, and I remember the mask he used to wear, particularly when we first met, covering up each and every reaction to make his way to his goals, when he was surrounded by enemies. I wonder if I’m a goal or an enemy. 

“It seems like you want me to be in Transmute City.” I say in a quiet voice. He’s silent for a long second, blinking up at the ceiling, the muscles in his arms and shoulders going slack and then tensing over and over again.

“I don’t know where you want to go. You broke Cid’s heart, you should mend your bridge with Kairi. There are a lot of places that would do you good to be in.” He trails off, pain flashing for a moment across his face. “So, whatever you have to do, you have to do. And you should, you’re right, you’ve got to get okay with yourself.”

“But I can’t stay here.” I murmur. Lea is perfectly stiff, then he nods. 

“I don’t think it would be good for either of us.” Lea says, so level it’s like a dull knife pressed to my skin. 

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” I agree, voice achingly quiet to keep it from breaking. 

“Rueki.” He finally shifts, turning to look at me and there’s that conflict again, there’s that pain. My face must look incredibly mangled as I try to keep the smile plastered to my face. It trembles, my insides do too. 

“No, it’s good. I get it, what I did was awful, above and beyond, it was dumb for me to think that I...that we could be…” I shake my head, clenching my jaw, my teeth mashed together. 

“Stop, please.” He demands and I listen, jerking my head up, hands knotted. “Rueki...I.. I’ve got a lot I need to sort out, too.” And we can’t do it together.

“I understand. You were very clear what you needed from me. You haven’t lied to me in years, I know that you wouldn’t do that. I’m sorry.” I insist. He winces, pushing himself fully up just so he can stare at the ground.

“Did you get the voicemail I sent you? The night before the battle?” He asks and my eyebrows raise.

“I um...I broke my phone when you told me we were enemies. I got this thing in Shibuya but I really didn't…” I pull my phone out of my pocket and sure enough, there is a voicemail I've not listened to.

“Just delete it. It's not...it won't do us any good.” He assures me. Silence falls over us again until Lea sucks in a breath. “I don’t know how much of me actually wants to forgive you, and how much of it is this soulmate thing.” Oh. Yeah. I had a meltdown over that, too. “And to be honest, I can’t do this again. We stopped a huge threat, we stopped the world from actually losing balance and the bulk of the realm from being eliminated altogether. You were so scared about before this all started, that means we’re never going to be fully free from threats. We’ll have to defend the realm if it calls again, there might be another war, and if the call does go out, I’m answering it, Rueki. Not because I feel guilty about my past, not because I’m trying to make up for what happened when I was with the Organization, but because I know it needs to be done, and I can’t go through what I did with you when this all started. Not in this life, not in the next, not ever again.”

“Okay, okay.” I just agree, because really, what right do I have to do anything else? He told me exactly what would happen if I didn’t back off my path, a thousand times over he warned me. And I thought what, that I would be able to somehow earn a human being back through one good deed in the end, a deed that cost too many lives? No. It’s worse than that, I thought that I could get away with anything in the world and that I would win him back with the power of light. The thing that rendered my best friend sterile of emotions, the thing that left me strung out and drained, clinging like a wounded animal to the legs of a man I didn’t trust for the life of me. I thought I was going to bamboozle my husband into loving me again through some sort of cosmic powers.

I collapsed worlds, I stole the light from an unwilling keeper, I broke my home in half, hunted my friends, struck them down like enemies. I found the cruelest words to say and I spat them with venom, I handed my wedding rings back, I ignored any attempt at civil conversation anyone made with me and slept with someone who had spent my entire life manipulating me, less than an hour after assuming that my husband left me. I convinced myself that I was all powerful, that this was the closest I’d get to truly being a savior of the realms, that I was the best. In plain, clear as day, black and white terms, I was the worst. Even if Lea offered me forgiveness right here and now, I don’t deserve it. Deep down I know what no one will say, I’m unforgivable.

“I need time, Rueki.” And there it is, hope, once more, unable to be snuffed out. He says time and I think I’ll give him every second he needs because regardless of if I’ll ever deserve him, I want him. I love Lea so much, with every cell inside of me, with every bit of my beating heart, with every single bone in my body or cognitive thought in my head. I love Lea.

But time isn’t a promise.

“How much?” I ask.

“Are you rushing me?” He’s immediately defensive and he has every right to be, because the last time I was this easy, I backed him into a corner and ruined his life. The codependency I was so afraid of with Del and Amaya, I developed with Lea in the year Kairi was dead and that fear of losing him single handedly destroyed us.

Well, that’s not true. I took that fear and used it as ammunition.

“No.” I tell him. “I just...to spare you, to spare me. We don’t ever need to have a talk, you don’t owe me any explanation, I know that I… How long though, before I should give you peace?” Because the only way I can offer him that is by never returning. He knows that, I know that. 

He’s quiet again, and he’s looking at me and I don’t know if it feels better or worse, but every second that green gaze lingers, I keep holding on, like he’s going to throw his arms around me and decide that we’ve suffered enough without each other. But just because I feel that way, doesn’t mean he’s obligated to. He deserves to hate me more than anyone else we know.

“A few months.” He admits. “I've talked it over with Ludor and Skuld, I'm gonna work with them training future Keyblade masters, I'm going to live my life. And I’m...I’m selling the house.”

That’s a hand around my throat, my pupils go tiny, my heart skips a beat.

“Oh.” I choke. “Right, Roxas and Xion are probably in college now, I’m sure Isa and Skuld are making plans of their own, it’s way too big for one person.”

“And I can’t be here anymore without thinking of you, everywhere I go.” He admits. I shatter. “In the kitchen, I think about you breaking that plate and wonder if I stopped you then, could I have changed this path? I’m in the sun room and I think about you locking yourself in there for days and how I promised I’d have your back and Xigbar still got in your head anyway. I can’t sleep in our bed, I can’t look at the training area out back, I can’t be anywhere without wondering where and at what point I could have turned everything all around. I can’t keep doing that Rueki, I’m falling apart.”

He’s so candid with me, I want nothing more than to throw my arms around him and promise him that none of that was his fault, that it was all me and that he loved me as hard as he could every step of the way.

But he needs time.

“I understand. I won’t fight you on selling it. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight and then I’ll be gone before you wake tomorrow.” I promise. I want him to assure me we don’t need to go to such extremes. I want him to want to hold me for one more night, kiss me one more time, promise that he loves me once more before I have to stare down the hallway of a future without him.

He doesn’t.

“Thank you.” He says. I look at the room one more time and see myself out.

\--

I lay on the couch in the blackness, pillow against the arm rest, eyes on a window that lets in more starlight than I can possibly bear. It’s a flashlight, an aching reminder beneath all of my pulse points that if I could have given up, been a little more loyal, stomached a death I could never recover from inflicting then maybe I’d at least still have Luxu and the white hot relief his magic granted me for however much--not enough-- time.

My hand splays out across my stomach and the scars on it, I watch Luxu crash into the ground, hear the sound of him imploding the ground beneath him, I can still visualize the distorted, jerky dance he did as my mega burst spell washed over his body and ground straight into him. I can smell the blood as he pushes my Keyblade through my body. I feel the scars and the knots of the stitches from my heart down to my stomach and contemplate just how truly horrid it would feel to undo them one by one. But there are dozens and Roxas, Xion, Riku, Sora and Kairi are all scattered across the rest of the living room furniture and floor, acting as barricades to keep me inside and precautions to keep me from acting rash. Which everyone knows well enough that I will do.

A light flicks on in the kitchen behind me and I jerk up so fast, the functional muscles in my body scream in protest and I actually scream though the fist in my mouth muffles that and only Riku stirs on the ground, humming as he shifts over onto his back. Tears are hot at the edges of my eyes, I’m watching Ven hit the ground, watching that blinding burst of light as he and then Lauriam die simultaneously, a sight I didn't even see in the first place I imagine. Every breath I take is the equivalent to sandpaper down my insides, but when I pull my knuckles out of my mouth and look into the kitchen, Skuld’s got her hand wrapped around a glass of something amber colored and is staring right at me.

“Didn’t mean to scare you.” She says, but she doesn’t apologize which is probably better. I nod at her, shaking and unresolved, knowing full well that sleep isn’t going to come whether she’s in the kitchen doing shots or not. “You wanna drink with me?”

“Can’t really get up.” I tell her. She smiles softly at me, comes and creeps around where the others lay on the floor and swoops me over her bony shoulders, which jab me in the armpit as my legs drag on the floor. 

“You’re not as heavy as you look.” She says.

“That’s nice, you can drop me now.” I tell her.

“It was a compliment.” She tells me.

“Um cool, you too then.” And she drags me over to the counter, where I lean my weight my it and grab the bottle she started in on, then we head out the back door, onto lawn chairs that didn’t exist when last I was here. She sets me down in one chair with a grunt, pours half the bottle into the cup she was holding and extends the bottle to me. I don’t even waste a second, knocking back as much of it as I can stomach, savoring the burn like it’s the last sweet sensation I have left. 

“I didn’t think you were a drinker.” She wrinkles her nose.

“I’m really not. But the build up to buzzed is great.” It’s only when I start becoming introspective and want to die that things get rough, but really, I’ve made home far beneath rock bottom, the only thing a bad trip could do is...

Well, without my ‘legs’ on, I can’t even get up to go hang myself.

“I didn’t expect you to be up.” I tell her and in the starlight, which hits her in a way that’s borderline ethereal -- like Namine, like Ava, fuck-- she shrugs.

“It’s a full moon.” She tells me, like that’s supposed to mean something. “Isa says you used to make jokes about him menstruating or turning into a werewolf whenever the moon was full.”

“Oh, yeah.” Distantly, I do recall that, but the way I used to tease him when our relationship was still so delicate, feels like something from a life that isn’t even mine. 

“And while that’s not quite what happens, he does become irritable…” She trails off, tracing a lithe finger around the rim of her glass, drinking from it with a lot more couth than I’m capable of. I take another massive pull from the bottle and hope that death brought my tolerance back to zero. “I’m usually the one that has nightmares. He talks in his sleep, but when the moon is full, it turns into full blown night terrors and that’s if he sleeps at all.”

“Do you not like being there with him when that’s happening?” I guess I couldn’t really fault her when Lea broke his back to keep me sane, despite my nightmares, despite his own trauma. Maybe Luxu shouldn’t be at fault for not being able to handle me, though there’s still plenty of blame to place on him. And I’m the only one left to stomach it. 

“I tried at first. But we’d both get upset with each other. Me because I wouldn’t sleep and then I’d be frustrated with him because there is no getting through to him when the moon is full, despite how analytical he is otherwise. I’d feel unappreciated and tired and angry because I still needed support and he couldn’t give it to me. And he’d feel guilty and masochistic and try to give me reasons to walk away like it was some sort of game to see which of us could break each other harder.” She tells me and I chew my lips, unsure about this new, voyeuristic outlook Skuld is offering me on her relationship. She must pity me on an entirely new level. 

“Yeah, I get how that goes.” And I’m sure she knows I do. The hollowness of the not quite darkness is echoed only by how big a piece of shit Skuld probably thinks I am.

“So, now when he gets like this, I give him space. It’s hard not being able to help him, but it’s harder pretending I can. Sometimes my partner’s problem isn’t mine.” She tells me. My face goes hot from hairline to neck so I take another long drink and wish this bottle would disappear faster or I’d feel it sooner. 

“So I take it Lea told you that we talked.” I grumble, and my husband’s name is a brass knuckled fist to the already open wounds in my abdomen. 

“He might have mentioned something about kicking you when you were already down.” Skuld admits, though we both know she does subtlety about as well as I do.

“And you’re here to tell me that I need to stop putting my problems on him if I ever hope to get him back?” I ask and she cracks the strangest of smiles as she takes a sip. 

“I wouldn’t begin to attempt to give you advice again. That turned out abysmally.” To my surprise, we both laugh, this strangled, uncomfortable sound. It actually feels good to get out. 

“That’s an understatement.” I say.

“And I’m not going to pretend I know what it’s like to be you or Lea or be with either of you. I do think a lot of your problems become his. But I think he takes on just as many as you throw at him.” She tells me. I start drinking again.

“Don’t you want to go have weird, kinky werewolf sex with your boyfriend?” I ask.

“No, I don’t do bottom and this time of the month he thinks he’s a top.” She rolls her eyes and I downright choke. “I’m just… you and I haven’t had a lot of nice conversations.” 

“You don’t need to start now. I know I’m tragic, but let's not either of us start faking it just because I took a bullet for your side and turned into a horror story because of it.” I shake my head.

“Do you know what Luxu told me to get me to follow him out of my cell in Radiant Garden?” She asks, tucking some of her lovely, dark hair behind her ear. I lean into the lawn chair and stare down at the bottle beside me. Shouldn’t some of this be kicking in by now? 

“I just assumed he drug you out, half conscious. Ansem did a number on your body.” I say and Skuld’s face goes abruptly cold, an eerie, porcelain sculpture.

“That would be a safe assumption.” She says, in a low voice. “He broke me apart, dissected me like a lab experiment. I know no one wants to ask if Isa was responsible for his death, but I asked and I know you had a hand in his actions, and for that, I do want to thank you. You’re unique about the way you deliver justice, but that was just.”

“Well, Del will be a better ruler, at least.” I offer. Skuld nods, and she looks up at the moon, bright as it shines above us.

“When Luxu took me though, he probably could have just dragged my body out of that cell. But he didn’t have to. He held a hand out to me and told me if I came with him, I would never feel pain again.” She tells me and my eyes narrow as I take another long drink.

“He hooked you up to machine’s that barely kept you alive, and anesthetized you to the point where you were barely conscious when he threw you at us.” I remind her.

“You’re correct. But the point is, he didn’t lie to me and I was so hungry for what he was selling, I didn’t look twice at the reality of it.” She explains, and already I can tell where this is heading.

“I fucked up, I know that.” I choke out, voice growing wetter with each syllable, tears that I hate threatening the edges of my vision. Why are the moon and stars so goddamn bright?

What point is there anyway when each passing second convinces me further that the sun will never rise again?

“You did.” She agrees. “It didn’t help that my attempts to stop you from falling for the same thing I did were what sealed your downfall.”

“Fuck, Skuld.” I shake my head. “Your conscience is clear, I made my own choices, you did everything by the book.” Mostly I want her to just stop talking.

“I think we’re probably at a point where we should hear each other out.” As always, she’s so frustratingly noble, even when it's inconvenient and I can’t stomach it. Especially then. “I didn’t want to hurt. I was...gapingly unaware of the hurt you suffered. It wasn’t until your funeral that Roxas, Kairi and Isa decided to be candid with me. About what you suffered at Isa’s hand, about the things that Master Ava put on your shoulders when you believed she was merely a young girl you were meant to protect, about the trials you were continuously put through, in order to keep a group of martyrs safe. I haven’t forgotten the way you betrayed us, or that your actions cost lives, what I am saying is I understand why you were able to believe, through Luxu, that he could lead you to a lifetime of never hurting again. I’m sorry that I had a hand in perpetuating that.”

I don’t know what to say to Skuld, so I keep drinking until I run out and hope that the buzz is going to kick in within the minute. I can’t take her eyes on me, I can’t take the lump that only seems to grow heavier in my throat with each passing conversation.

“There’s been a very tangible line drawn between those who support you and those who don’t. I suppose I don’t want either side of that, because I’m not going to offer you up unconditional sympathy. I just want you to know I understand.” She wants to say this to clear her own mind, she wants to say this because she sees the rift I draw between my friends, the way I work their relationships into the ground like a sinkhole. I cut apart friends like I’m amputating their limbs, and all because of what? Skuld put it very plainly. I did it because I was hurt, because I was sad, so suddenly I’m the only one whose ever felt that way.

I am such a fucking leach and now I can’t even pick myself up to run as far away from everyone as I possibly can.

I made a mistake coming back to life. I was selfish, to not just die. And here, in the moonlight, beside someone who has been irritatingly selfless, I see that clear as day.

The light, I decide, was not a worthy cause to fight for. I feel it beam down and expose me and I’m certain Skuld sees it too. So when morning light comes and I’m barely buzzing, thanks, I’m sure, to the Elixir pulsing through my system, I take off with Amaya and Lucidia without a single word of protest.

Amaya tries to help me walk, but with my shaky, newborn doe legs, I stumble straight into my old bedroom, lock the door behind me and cover up the cracks with a blanket. Morning light peers in, however gray from the Transmute City sky, so I close my blinds and drape yet another blanket over them, blocking out much of the light.

It’s not enough though, it slips through cracks, it sinks into my skin, it eats away at the remnants of my mind and whispers the one last thing I know to be true

‘All I can do is take. I am selfish, my life is a mistake’.


	64. Chapter 64

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to the last chapter was very humbling, you guys. As glad as I am that I was able to effectively showcase the feelings that Rueki was experiencing, it makes me sad that you guys have felt a lot of the same things she has in some way shape or form but I guess that's what makes the process relatable.  
This chapter might be the most difficult to read through, but I'm hoping once again the humanity of the situation shines through. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this but I'm Bipolar and at the start of my most recent depressive phase, I wrote these past two chapters, so my heart is entirely in these and honestly it was a cathartic process, I hope it's the same for you guys

LXIII.

I’m going to kill myself today and the biggest problem is that I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it.

Any direct method involves Amaya or Lucidia finding my body. Anything indirect like flying off into space and going to die, involves pain, pain that I’m incapable of handling additionally at the moment. 

Therein lies the issue, as I press injections of straight Elixir into different hotspots up and down my legs. My eyes find the external skeleton I’m supposed to strap from my hips down to my ankles. But I sit up here in the bed that used to be Del’s and just the effort of attaching those to my body and struggling to walk out of bed feels too tremendous to take on. My chest is tight, my eyes are sore from nights spent crying too hard, the nightmares are worse than ever.

There’s a knock on my door and Amaya enters, looking around, green eyes blinking rapidly.

“Did you put duct tape over the windows?” She asks, I look down at the floor.

“The streetlights were shining in, it was too bright.” I mutter.

“Rueki, there’s no streetlight that glares into that window, don’t you remember?” She asks, my face flushes.

“Maybe it was the stars or the moon then. It was too light.” There are no shadows dark enough where I want to bask in them. Even with the windows taped up, my phone shut off, the crack in the door sealed with a blanket, even in the pitch black, none of this is dark enough where I don’t see golden eyes staring at me from the blackness in every sliver of light.

Vanitas died for me. He died and it’s my fault, he died and he was barely loved and barely lived and I can't bring him back.

“How can you see in here?” She asks, I just shrug, I know my response is unsatisfactory. I don’t try harder. “I’ve got some light work to do on a ship. It really doesn’t need a test fly, but would you like to fly out anyway?”

It doesn’t need a test fly. And that’s all I’m good at anyway.

“No, not really.” I say, looking again at the electronic skeleton.

“Do you want some help with those? Have you given yourself Elixir?” She asks.

“No, it’s fine. And yes I have.” I tell her bleakly. She disregards me and comes to my side, pulling one of the attachments up and pressing it to my hip. I huff and zap myself to connect the joint. She pushes it to the joint in my knee and then to the joint of my ankle and I follow it with an electric zap each way. She goes about the same process with the other one and smiles a sweet smile up at me, with her scarred face. How she allowed Del to baby her like this after the explosion, I don’t understand. I hate this. 

“I made eggs, would you like any?” She asks. I’m not even thinking about breakfast.

“No thank you.” I shake my head.

“Would you like me to wash your hair for you? You could use a cut.” She says. I know very well that I coud, but that’s the last thing on my mind.

“Maya, you really don’t need to do this, I’m fine.” I sigh, balling my hands up into fists on my lap.

“Rueki…” She bites her lips and tuck her short hair behind her ears, but little pieces flutter forward. “I can hear you crying in your sleep. I can hear you having nightmares.”

But she doesn’t see them. She doesn’t see me running through Daybreak Town, with ashes falling from the sky, into my hair. She doesn’t see the Darklings springing to life, leaving their strange wounds across my body, carving out shapes with their claws in my skin that will never heal. She doesn’t see me search for Vanitas, or that when I do find him and I get my arms around him, he turns to dust, inky debris exploding all over me until I choke and cough and hit the ground. When my vision returns, I see a phantom of myself standing over me, bleeding, hair wild in the catch of the wind, my abdomen split open, my legs torn so that I can see bone and muscle and tendons. I stand over me with Backbiter in my hand, and the me that is bleeding shoots lightning out of her hands and wraps it around my throat. I claw at the lightning but the other me drags me into the air, the lightning a noose.

“You’re an anvil.” The other me taunts, but she has Luxu’s voice. “You should’ve stayed dead.” She tells me in Aqua’s voice. “No one would have missed you.” She ends with Lea’s voice and I close my eyes as the constriction in my throat begs me under, but when I open them again, I’m wheezing and gasping and choking in a room that used to belong to my ex, clawing at my throat, my legs still numb beneath me. 

“Sorry.” I tell Amaya, but my stupid hands start shaking and I taste the metallic tang of blood on my lips.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Rueki, I’m just scared for you. I know it’s been only two weeks and you’ve been through so much, and I don’t want to rush you, but you’ve only gotten out of bed a very small handful of times. You don’t put your skeleton on most days, I’ve barely seen you eat, and even when I talk to you and look at you, it’s like...it’s like you look straight through me.” She squeezes my knee, I don’t feel it at all. I don’t feel anything, my eyes flick away from her and to the taped out window that taunts me, because no matter how many layers I place over it, some light always seems to get through--

And when it does, I’m on my knees, in front of Luxu, begging for a little more, one shot to get me by, I’ll do anything, I’ll be anything.

My heart quakes, burning with anticipation at the very thought.

“I don’t know how to help you.” Amaya’s voice dips down to a whisper and I’m even more resolved that no matter what happens, I can’t live any longer. I’ve outstayed my life, overlived my welcome. The world itself is rejecting me, I fought so long and so hard to come back to a place where I’m not a necessity and my reappearance is only souring the lives of those around me. Maybe Amaya and Aqua would be raising Lucidia. Maybe Lea would have a girl who is whole and beautiful and utterly not toxic to him. Maybe Kairi would be free of the weight of my friendship, wrapped like shackles- anvils-- around her ankles. Maybe Roxas and Xion would be off at university, hands twisted together, heads knit, making plans and not once would I be on their lips. “There’s a friend of mine I'd like you to call, a customer at the shop. She's a therapist, I think it would be good if you spoke to her.” She tells me and even takes it upon herself to place a business card inside the pocket of a pair of jeans she folded up and set on the dresser.

“Okay, I will today.” I won’t. I won’t at all, because as much as I can’t have Amaya finding me with my wrists slashed wide open or dangling from the ceiling fan, I really don’t want her to have to call a therapist and cancel an appointment I will never go to.

“Do you promise?” She asks.

“Yes.” No. 

“Well, if you don’t want to fly, I won’t open the shop today, I’ll spend the day with you and Lucidia, maybe we can get hot chocolate, she’s been asking so long to go to the library, that’ll be nice, right?” Amaya asks in this fluttery, anxious voice, like if she somehow concocts the perfect afternoon I’ll be cured of everything that's made me a leach to her and Lucidia these past few weeks.

I look at my phone, turned off on my nightstand. 

It’s two weeks in and Lea hasn’t so much as texted me. He’s not going to take me back. My soulmate doesn’t want me, my heart’s other half is dead at my hand, I’m too pathetic looking to even call Reno in a frenzy and beg him to take me in any way he wants, just so I can hear that voice whisper my name.

There’s no future where I’m not lonely forever. And even if there were, I’m not physically fit to seek it out. I wanted freedom for so long, I paced my cage with desperation. Now I’m strapped to the wall, and I’m the one who did it to myself.

“Maya, you don’t need to do that, I can watch Lucidia.” I assure her. Her eyes flash, equal parts horror and hope. The former, probably because me and the toddler are probably the same amount of functional. The latter, probably because she knows I’ll get my ass out of bed to keep her daughter from burning the house down.

And I do, but the second Amaya is out of the house, assuring me it will only be a couple hour job, and that Lucidia will probably be asleep through half of it, I’m in the freezer with a bottle of alcohol in my hands. Light screams through the kitchen, so I take the bottle with me into the cabinet for pots and pans. I clear them out, careful to be quiet with them so that Lucidia does not wake, and crawl in, unsatisfied even when I shut the cupboard door and use every bit of control I have of the artificial joints, to curl my legs up. Light still creeps in the cracks, so I twist off the cap off the bottle and drink it like water.

To my utter misery, I find it doesn't seem to work and I’m half of the fucking fifth in and all the progress I’ve made is that I’ve decided as long as I take an entire bottle of whatever painkillers Amaya has in the medicine cabinet and polish off whatever other liquor she has, all I’ll have to do is hop in the bath tub and pretend it all was an accident. I fell asleep and drowned in the tub, and won’t that be tragic but not half as bad as if it looks intentional, right?

It’s with that on my mind, that cabinet I’m inside of is thrown open, I ball up my flesh fist and shove it into my mouth while the mechanical one closes so tight around the bottle that it shatters, liquor spilling all over the clothes I didn’t even want to dress in, in the first place. 

The scream is stifled, but I see the Master, hood hanging low over his head, laughing wildly as he tells me ‘seeing the face of god would make you go mad’.

And then--

And then the Master fades and Lucidia is standing there, her chunky little belly sticking out from a bright pink shirt and a pair of pajama pants with unicorns on them.

“Found you!” She announces, grinning this huge grin with missing teeth up front. I just blink, mouth parting as I stare at her, fist coming slowly out of my mouth, bleeding from how hard I bit it. 

Fuck me. I shouldn’t have volunteered to watch this thing, sleep through half of the job my ass. I can’t even get drunk in a kitchen cabinet without getting bothered.

“Cool.” I tell her and my words don’t even slur, I don’t even feel the delicious, tingling rise of a buzz. It’s all just unfair as hell. “Now you go hide, I’ll come find you.” I won’t at all, I will actually be finding any other alcohol her mommy has hiding anywhere in the house and hopefully have that knocked back before her mommy even gets home.

“Okay, come with me.” She says. I lift an eyebrow.

“Then I’ll know where you’re hiding.” I say.

“But I need help.” She pouts. “I got a good spot, but I can’t reach it.”

I roll my eyes. Fucking children.

“It won’t be a good spot anymore if I see where it is.” I gripe.

“Well just pretend!” She suggests. My mouth fixes into a pout. I think the worst damn part is that she doesn’t understand adult logic. “You’re all wet.” 

And I stink like cheap booze and body odor from not showering for days. My hair is greasy as all hell and the bags beneath my eyes are probably as pronounced as ever.

“Yeah, okay, go find a hiding spot you can reach.” I order.

“I don’t want to hide anymore.” She tells me. I just blink at her.

“Well what do you want to do?” Not that I actually give a quarter of a fuck, but if it’s something as simple as watch a movie, that’s easy enough to entertain her and to find my way back into the hole I have dug myself.

Hole, like the crater Luxu’s body created as I shoved him into the cobblestone streets of Daybreak T--

“Get hot chocolate.” She tells me.

“You don’t need hot chocolate.” I tell Lucidia flatly, but push the shards of glass into the cabinet and try to climb out of it. The artificial joints attached to me throw an outright fit and I hit the ground, crashing right to my ass. Goddammit.

“Oof!” Lucidia cries and throws herself to the floor, landing on her butt, just like me. But rather unlike me, she brings two hands--which are sticky for some reason?-- up to her mouth and starts giggling wild. “Silly!” She declares and I think, yeah I’m the joke and falling on my fucking ass in front of a toddler is the punch line.

We sit there looking at each other, her grinning this big, stupid, idiotic smile that makes her look painfully like her father. And to that point, I just want to shut her right the fuck up and not have to deal with the complexities of some moronic child telling her mom I got trashed in a kitchen cabinet and reek like alcohol. 

“Silly, right.” I look at her attire and decide right away that as long as she has a coat I can slap over her pajamas, she’s fit for the public eye. More than I am, at least. “Do you have a coat?”

“It’s purple!” She tells me joyously. “My boots are too.”

“Do you know how to put those on?” I ask, because truly, I have no idea what this child knows how to do, the last time I saw her she was a baby and now she’s talking. 

“Duh!” She giggles, I just roll my eyes, chew my lips and look up at the counter. I raise my arms above my head and yank myself to my feet, gripping the edge of the counter. My palms splay across the countertop as I try to find my footing and try to figure out where I fell short, but the fact of the matter is I am going to need more Elixir to move with any degree of normalcy. The mere thought almost makes me want to release the counter and crash to the ground again. But I look at that stupid child with her father’s grin and her mother’s eyes and decide it’s bad enough that her first memories of me are probably going to be finding me losing my shit in a kitchen cabinet. Having a whole mental breakdown in front of her, if I can help it, would be best to avoid if I’m not gonna scar this kid for life.

It’s eerie, I can’t decide if she looks more like Del or Amaya but I’m back in the orphanage again and Amaya needs me to run slow so she can stop being ‘it’ in tag because the older boys always tease her, and Del is afraid of the dark and I have to protect them both. It’s such a deep, intense, gut instinct that propels me even when every fiber in my body demands I give up and give in.

I hate it, it’s like I’m out of control again, forced to protect someone that I didn’t sign on to.

“Kay, go put your coat and boots on, I’m gonna put some clothes on and then we’ll go get hot chocolate.” I decide and she cheers loudly, leaping up into the air.

“Yipee!” She cries out and full blown books it past me, into her bedroom. I’m alone again in the kitchen, still clinging to the counter and I groan, tossing my head back in frustration.

I’m gonna have to fucking drag my ass back to my room.

I try to take a few steps, I get two in and I hit the ground again and the fucking tears bubble up again. Lucidia starts singing loudly--and terribly-- in her bedroom and I swallow the big fucking lump in my throat. The campaign to kill myself doesn’t have to be done, I tell myself and it’s like a shred of hope. It’s just on pause, that’s all. I’ll spend a normal afternoon with this kid and maybe Amaya will let me disappear and treat it like good behavior and maybe I can… I don’t know, go somewhere, go back to Midgar somehow with Elixir piping in my veins, go back to the bar Elrena and I met Reno, Rude and Aerith in, get annihilated, pick a fight and mean it and hope the bartender shoots me in the head when he goes to kick me out. Yeah, I tell myself. That’ll be good. I might have to steal some munny from Amaya to afford enough alcohol to break my brain, but won’t that be better than her or Lucidia having to find my body?

I use that plan like a crutch to drag myself back from my room, and this time, I don’t hold back on the Elixir, I shoot it into the muscles of my legs in double doses, feeling just a little warm when I finally get back to my feet. I quickly strip out of the soaked clothes and don’t even really think, I just grab the pair of jeans off my dresser and a hoodie out of the closet, throw them on, knot my hair in a bun and spray enough perfume on me to almost drown out the scent of the booze. Almost. Whatever. What some assholes in Transmute City think about some garbage can of a woman toting around the former councilman’s kid, won’t matter in twenty four hours. I’ll be a memory. Better yet, I’ll be Imagination.

For good measure, I shove a fuck ton of syringes into an old purse I don’t remember buying and toss it over my shoulder before heading out into the kitchen. Lucidia fortunately is dressed in both her coat and boots...but her boots are on the wrong feet.

“Dude, your shoes go on your other feet.” I sigh, setting a hand on my hip. She presses her lips and looks up at me, defiantly.

“I like how they feel like this better!” She snaps and I realize right away that if I try to get her to look respectable, I’m gonna be spending the larger part of the day in an argument with a fucking four year old.

“Okay, whatever.” And with that, I throw the door open, unprepared for the immediate bite of the wind. It’s got teeth and there’s nothing warm inside me, the fire is completely extinguished, it cuts into my bones, bones so easy and fragile and human and so quickly broken and I--

“Aunt Rueki, come on!” Lucidia groans and reality snaps back, but there’s still a vice grip on my throat. She yanks at the fabric of my jeans until finally I swallow the pit and nod. It’s one step, I tell myself. It’s a couple hours to pretend, to hold myself together and if I can get through this, I can disappear. If I can’t manage a couple fucking hours, am I good for anything? I know the answer to that, and that’s probably why this is so brutal. I can’t manage a couple fucking hours. I’m not good for anything.

But I take steps, and the hollowed out, strained pace I move at just about matches the pace of this small child with her little legs, making her way through the wind and the cold with ease, like I used to, like we all used to.

I’m here with Vanitas again, I’m thinking about Sora showing up here again, the muscles in my body are strained as Del beats into me with his Keyblade and I--

I don’t even think, I scream, Backbiter appears in my hand and little Lucidia turns around, eyes wide. She shouts back “rahhh” like this is some sort of game, and nearly skips over to Backbiter, poking the spot where the dark sphere is missing from the hilt.

“This is pretty.” She tells me, but I’m bright red, I can’t even fucking leave yet and this kid’s definitely gonna tell Amaya I showed her some ‘pretty’ sword. “Daddy’s Keyblade isn’t pretty. Why does yours have shiny things?”

“I don’t know.” I tell her, and I try to decide if it would be worse if I banished the Keyblade right now or let this curious girl examine it. “It’s dangerous, be careful.”

“Daddy says Keyblades are only dangerous if bad people have them.” She tells me. I don’t tell her that I probably fit that criteria, or at least once did, in her father’s eyes. “Do you think I’ll have a Keyblade one day?”

“I don’t know.” I hope not.

“Maybe I’ll learn magic or alchemy like you. Mommy and daddy say you’re good at them.” She says. “They said they lost you and couldn’t find you, but now they did! I’m glad they could find you. I hate losing things. It’s good to have a clean room.”

Those things don’t necessarily line up right away to me, but I just stare down at her, get rid of my Keyblade and try to focus only on the wind and how it bites me. 

I was a topic of conversation for the year I was gone. I was a picture on the wall, a memory, I was grieved in all the ways I had to grieve Kairi when she was gone for a year and I--

Kairi came back and I shoved her away with both hands. I wonder if she felt like this, if she contemplated whether or not she even deserved to be alive if her best friend wanted nothing to do with her

“Can we go to the lie-berry?” Lucidia asks me, abruptly and I almost scream.

“Library.” I sigh.

“Yeah, I wanna show you my books!” They’re not technically her books, but I guess it couldn’t hurt, especially when I know there’s a vending machine that dispenses coffee and hot chocolate right by the kids section in the library. 

So she skips along, singing something obnoxious to herself while I drag my ass, wincing like each step is across broken glass, through the cold. I notice soothing shift in the shadows of the alleys, my heart leaps into my throat. Maybe it's not my imagination. In the dark corners...in the shadows of my heart… I don’t have to be alone, and just because the others didn’t try, doesn’t mean--

Hope is the bitterest pill to swallow in the face of reality, and I realize plain and simple, I can’t force it down. But I want so bad to not be alone in the last hours of my life, that I convince myself the shapes twisting in the shadows of this world are Vanitas calling to me through our shared darkness, through the link that he once helped me spawn Nobodies through. In the last hours of this mistake of a rebirth, I want to be dragged through my internal dark night of the soul, by hands strong enough to force me.

Finally, I won’t have to be the one left behind, this darkness tells me. Finally I won’t have to be the one that watches love and companionship slip away. We get to the library, Lucidia twirls around and lands on her butt, giggling at me. I blink at her, unsure why she’s so fixated by the act of falling on her ass. It wasn’t even funny the first time. I glare down at her, she tucks her hand to her chin like it somehow makes her cute. 

“You wanna know my favorite story?” She asks and I almost flat out say no, because I really don’t care.

“Let me guess, it’s about a princess.” I roll my eyes.

“No, a dragon.” She smiles at me. “The dragon has a sword.” Really compelling read, from the sounds of it. 

“Why does the dragon need a sword?” I ask.

“For magic!” Right, of course, silly me. She laughs this high, squealing, delighted sound. Shrill like a squawk and my vision starts to go spotty again, I start to see horrors that I can’t escape, a past that I can’t claw away from, a war that is going to wage in me for--

No. I don’t see any of that. I see her dad who used to shriek so ferociously over the silliest things to, crying out with heroic pride every time he tagged someone. I hear her mother, getting excited over the thought of reading books with me under blankets in the orphanage, begging me to just read one more chapter to her. I see this kind of untainted innocence that I thought belonged in the past and it just..it strikes me as odd to see it revived, in the generation that will follow mine. 

Somehow, I forgot, I realized. That there was a time before I learned cynicism and martyrdom, before Del learned civility and charisma and Amaya learned bravery and strength. There’s something about watching this little girl, her cheeks ruddy with the cold that does something to my stomach that I’m unused to. I don’t--

I can’t possibly feel--

It’s dead--

So why does the warm light of faith, of genuine hope feel like it’s a coal not yet extinguished in the fire inside of me?

I just scoop her up into my arms and carry her into the library, unwilling to keep thinking on it. She laughs and shoves a sticky hand in my face as we push past the doors and back into a warm lobby. 

“Lucidia!” Someone greets her.

“Aunt Rueki, this is Vitane!” Lucidia juts a chubby finger, I realize I know that name and I twist, Lucidia still in my arms, toward the desk.

Vitane is a woman with short brown hair that I vaguely remember from the orphanage and she regards me like my very presence makes her contemplate calling the authorities. Then her jaw goes slack.

“Is that...Rueki?” She blinks at me and I set Lucidia down.

“Yep.” I really don’t want this conversation. In my head, I try to recall where the children’s section of this library is and how hard it will be to just clock out mentally while Lucidia throws books at me and begs that I read them--just like her mother did and I loathe the way that’s endearing. 

“I….I didn’t realize you were still living in town. I thought you were dead.” She admits. 

“It never really seems to last.” I roll my eyes. Vitane blinks at me. “Can you just show me the books” I ask Lucidia, a hand on my hip, she beams up at me.

“Carry me!” She demands.

“I can’t, I can’t even walk right.” I remind her but she scrunches up her face like she just bit into a lemon.

“You carried me inside!” She reminds me and suddenly my mouth feels dry. I did. When I can barely walk. How did--

I decide not to think about it because I can’t think about it and I can’t think about the way that it stokes those embers inside of me, tries so hard to reignite what I have finally resolved is dead. I can’t keep doing this. I pick up Lucidia and she points toward an edge of the library where motion lights have blacked out the area and with legs that start to shake again, I remind myself this is the problem. She’s cute, she’s amusing, Lucidia is reminding me of things I thought long lost inside of me, but even she can’t make the darkness black enough. Even she cannot stop me from seeing the only face that could offer me any salvation, the further we get to approaching it. I set her down on the ground, my heart hammers. He’s there, I swear to Nothing, Vanitas is there and if this place would only turn off the rest of the lights I’d be able to see him and his promise wouldn’t be broken and he really would be strong enough to come back and offer me the commiserated companionship that is my only chance at not fading into the memories of the woman I used to be.

My mouth is dry as I stare into the darkness. His face stares back at me. Him. In the last dark corners, in the shadows Luxu carved out in my heart just to make room for him. I reach out, I know the tears are going to start soon, but if I can just brush my fingers to his, if I can just feel once more that I am truly, finally not alone, I can--

“Aunt Rueki!” A tiny, soft hand curls around my fingers, I stagger and feel like I’ve been torn away because when I look back up at the blackness, Vanitas is gone. Vanitas is gone and I’m alone cuz he’s dead and I-- “Aunt Rueki! My books are over here!” Lucidia tugs on my hand and my heart jumps up into my throat.

I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be alone so bad that something gives way completely, inside of me. I scoop up Lucidia in one arm, she makes a noise as I hold her close and she giggles but I set my cheek on top of her head. I don’t want to be alone so bad but Vanitas is gone and Lea’s never going to want me again and I want to die so bad but I don’t want to hurt ever again and I’m so torn, spread thin, about to be ripped at the seams and I just can’t find anyone and I feel so empty, so shattered, so broken down, that I will take anything. I want to read books with this annoying little girl that my two friends created. I want to grab Amaya’s hand and ask her for those eggs and the hair cut. I want to call Kairi and ask her to come up and hold me like she did back that first day I came back, when I sobbed. I want to apologize to Roxas for how I behaved and Xion for how it always seems like her boyfriend is choosing someone else and congratulate Del on becoming an actual king. I want to read these fucking books. I want something to give so bad because I just can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.

“You don’t smell very pretty.” Lucidia tells me. I laugh and the sound catches, thick and wet in my throat. Someone comes in through the darkness, lights turn on in the motion sensor of their wake, so Lucidia and I turn back to the kid’s section and I set her down. She giggles and scampers over it, almost tripping over her misworn boots. She hits the ground then grins up at me, so proud of herself. “Silly!” She announces. My heart cannot take this, but I look at how she sits on the ground, so proud of herself for mirroring something I did on accident, and I force myself over to her, smiling softly as I take a seat in the kid’s section. Lucidia goes over to select a book while I reach into my pocket.

I can’t do this anymore. I really, really need something to give. I don’t care what it takes anymore. 

I pull the business card out of my pocket, pull out my phone and call the number on it.

“Transmute Therapy Services, this is Moira, how can I help you?” A perky sounding woman on the other line asks and I almost hang up right away.

“This one, aunt Rueki!” Lucidia cheers, showing me a book, so I force myself to speak.

“Um, yeah, I think I would like to try make an appointment to see someone...for some therapy.” I choke out.

“Of course, I just have a few questions I need to ask!” 

\--

I read to Lucidia until my throat starts to hurt and until the library starts to close and then, when we’re the last ones, I inject myself with Elixir and we walk home, her on my back, me forcing my legs to stand upright, not just for me, but for her. Because she cheers with every step I take and it is the literal embodiment of everything I need and when I finally set Lucidia down at the door and open it up, I suddenly feel a lot less powerful. 

“Rueki, omigod, you have no idea how--”

“Mommy aunt Rueki got us hot chocolate! And she read to me! You know that story about the swords and--” Lucidia’s babbling is nearly incoherent as she flings herself into Amaya’s arms as I stand just inside the doorway, the door latched shut behind me, the wind roaring audibly behind it.

In one of Amaya’s hands is the broken off neck of the liquor bottle I shattered in my hand. There are towels set down inside the open cabinet and the pots and pans are now stacked on the counter. Despite the way Lucidia chatters on, Amaya looks straight at me, a thousand unanswered questions in her eyes. And tragically, I’m the only one who can offer those answers.

I slip out of my boots before making my way over to her and taking the bottle neck out of her hand, my prosthetic brushes hers.

“Sorry about the mess. Hide and seek can get brutal.” I tell her, chewing my lips as I throw away the glass and look to the cabinet. “What else can I pick up?”

“Everything’s cleaned now, we’re just waiting for the towels to dry everything up.” Amaya’s brow wrinkles and she sets Lucidia on the ground. “Lu, do you want to go put on some cartoons?”

“Yeah!” She cheers, booking it out into the living room, though not without stealing a glance at me. Right as she gets to the couch, she smirks at me and throws herself onto her butt. “Silly!” She cheers. 

“Silly.” I agree, and that big, dumb, insufferable, perfect, unstoppable smile stretches to life across my face. Amaya’s face starts to soften.

“Rueki, do I even need to begin?” She asks, my hands twist.

“I’d deserve it if you did.” I admit. We sit there, in this strained, impossible, pregnant silence. She has no idea how to tell me that I’m a colossal fuck up when I already know it and she clearly feels terrible for me and I hae no idea how to tell her--. No, I do. I scrub my palms across the front of my pants, I chew my lips and then I force myself to speak. “Maya, um… I made the appointment with that therapist.” Her eyes flash, her mouth parts. “I um… you don’t need to stay or anything, but do you think you could at least come with me to it until the appointment starts cuz if you don’t… I’m scared.. I’m fucking scared I won’t go and I really need to go. I really want to go.” 

I look at her and she looks at me and neither of us still have any clue what to say, but she throws her arms around my shoulders and I clench the fabric of her shit between my fists and try so fucking hard to stop shaking and crying.

“Of course I will, Lucidia and I will both be there. Don’t ever second guess, Rueki, all you ever have to do is ask.” She kisses the top of my head, and not for the first time, it feels like she’s the one raising me.

“You’re the best friend I ever had.” I choke.

“Not always.” She corrects, shaking her head against me. “But I promise to always be as good as I can be and Rueki… I’m not your only friend. I know you have such a hard time realizing this, but you have a lot of us now. And not just friends. Family.”

I don’t respond to that, I don’t really know how to. But when we pull away, I still keep my hands on her arms.

“Maya, can I get a haircut?” I ask. She smiles and her eyes might very well be the first bright color I’ve seen since--

Since long before I died.

“Of course, but you know I can’t do any fancy stuff like put more red in there, it’s really grown out.” She proclaims, running fingers through my hair.

“That’s fine. I actually think I want you to cut out anything that’s red.” I admit. She makes a face, eyes widening, nostrils flaring as she examines my hair.

“Rueki, that would put it just below your chin.” She says.

“That’s fine. I just think I’m ready to get rid of it.” 

“Okay then.” She smiles. “I think you’ll like it short! It’s a lot less maintenance.” And just like that, she lets me go and pulls out a chair from the kitchen table. 

“Mommy, can I get my hair cut short like you and aunt Rueki?” Lucidia pipes up, spinning around from where she sits on the floor, cartoons blasting from the television. 

“Sure.” Amaya laughs. I sit down in the chair, she wets my hair down and I listen to the sound of it hitting the ground.

Perhaps I won’t kill myself today.


	65. Chapter 65

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished writing Tempest yesterday and wow I'm emotional. It still feels like this fic isn't almost done Cuz I have editing to do but wow you guys. Thank all of you, everyone still reading, whether you leave a review or just come here to lurk, from the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much

LXIV.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” Lucidia throws herself into my bed. Amaya plops down at the edge. I crack a devilish grin and peek one eye open. “Come on! We're gonna see daddy today!” Lucidia crawls up the length of me bed, starts shaking my shoulder and in one quick swoop, I snatch her up and holds her up by her belly, with my metal hand.

“I found a toddler, does anyone wanna buy her!” I tease, opening both eyes as Lucidia squeals in delight, spreading her arms wide like she's flying. 

“Mommy look!” She demands.

“I'm looking.” Amaya smiles, but she's not. Not at Lucidia at least, but at me.

I've been going to therapy three times a week, for a month. I've been getting out of bed consistently for three weeks. I wake up screaming with nightmares still and haven't taken the tape off of my windows and my heart rate picks up wildly when light peers through. I still want to hide in a cabinet and drink the day away, but apparently I really can't get drunk anymore. Sometimes I'm in the bath and I look at a razor blade and think of how I can only walk with Ienzo’s device strapped to my legs and Lea hasn't texted me once and Vanitas is never coming back and I wish I didn't choose to play the Reaper’s Game at all. 

But my therapist says my ideations are not my actions and that is something I should be proud of, so I make a list in my head of other things I'm proud of. Like how when I have nightmares, sometimes I knock on Amaya’s door and crawl into bed with her and while it doesn't keep the nightmares away, it feels okay to tell her that I don't want to be alone, even if I can't tell her what my nightmares are about yet. I'm proud of the fact that I play and read with Lucidia and she makes my heart feel light and while I can't accept that I deserve that sort of softness, I can recognize it feels good and not in the toxic way my light addiction or sex with Luxu did. I'm proud of the fact that every day, I keep track of the steps I'm able to take before shooting myself up with Elixir and while I'm not ready to run marathons, and my progress hasn't been linear, I recognize myself getting stronger, more accustomed to the machine that keeps me going when my body cannot.

“You know you don't need to leave. You're doing really well, Rueki, you can rest here as long as you want.” Amaya assures me, and while I appreciate it, I don't tell her I've been here exactly as long as I think I can be and stay sane. Not moving, remaining stagnant in the year that Kairi died, was bad for me. I can do my therapy over the phone, I love staying with Amaya and Lucidia and she's right, comparatively, I'm doing better, but the thought of meeting Del in Twilight Town to drop off Lucidia and meet with the others before him, me, and Lucidia head to Radiant Garden fills me with something I haven't felt in a long time: excitement. 

“My therapist thinks it'll be good for me to get out, and I do too, Maya. But I won't be gone like I used to be… I know I say that every time but this time…” I chew my lips. How do I say this and not sound like a cliche idiot?

“I know, it’ll be different, you're different.” She nods. “I just don't want you to fall back.”

“I know, me either.” I agree as I set a giggling Lucidia back onto the bed. “But that's why I wanna try and see if I can do this.” 

Amaya reaches over and sets a hand on my leg before patting it twice. I don't feel it, but I do appreciate the sentiment.

“Well then, aunt Rueki, we better get ready. I think Lu is ready to see dad.” 

\--

I'm not sure if it makes me a coward to not want to flock into Lea's house with Amaya and Lucidia. Kairi, Sora, Riku, Roxas, Xion, Isa, Skuld and obviously Del and Amaya are with my husband inside and honestly even if seeing him wasn't a massive step to take, seeing everyone at once would be. I'm going to be a topic of conversation, I think I would rather let Amaya relay to everyone the progress she feels I've made or haven't, without being present. Besides, it's nice out, the grass is plush and certainly needs to be cut and I feel serene watching the creek bubble. 

Someone sets a hand on my shoulder and I almost flip them over and put an elbow to their throat. It’s a good thing I don’t, because when I turn, with blow out eyes and a heart in my throat, green eyes meet mine. 

“Lea.” His name is coming home on the coldest of nights to warm blankets and a roaring fire. He opens his mouth to speak, but abruptly, his eyes flash wide and he almost recoils. Instead he just kind of holds this awkward crouched position like all of his assuredness has somehow been wiped away. My heart skips into my throat. It’s because he loves my hair. He’s fixated on the way it brushes the the point of my chin, the way that I’ve got it parted so that he can see both of my eyes and my cowlicks are relatively tame. It’s my new clothes, the white tube top laced with blackribbons that look like suspenders down the front and the middle, the black shorts and the black thigh highs with red boots. He’s going to take one look at me and decide he’s far too attracted to me to let me go, he’s so overcome by emotion that--

I’ve been reading too many fairy tales to Lucidia. I don’t get the guy cuz he thinks I look pretty, not all is forgiven because I got a fucking haircut that he might not even like. I’m responsible for the death of our friends, I slept with Luxu a lot. A lot of my actions were unforgivable or at least require more to wipe them away then just looking cute. And even that’s subjective, the girl he cornered in the library had a very different looking body than mine. The reality of the matter is that the things Lea ignored about my changed body because he loved me have probably become a lot more apparent now that the rose colored glasses have come off. 

“Have you been sleeping?” He chokes. I can’t help the face I make.

“Sometimes.” I admit, baffled. “More than normal.” 

He sits down and doesn’t say a word about my haircut, which means he hates it. Focusing on the muscles in my legs, I curl them up into me, his eyes grow even wider, I look down at my shoes, sudden shyness gripping me. This man has seen me naked, why am I feeling so terribly awkward now?

“You’re moving your legs.” He says. I bite my lip.

“I can jog now too.” I admit. “Not for very long, but...”

“You must be working hard at it.” He speculates. I want to reach over and shake his shoulders and ask him if this is the moment he takes me back, if he’s sorted out what he needed to in his head or if this is where he tells me ‘goodbye’. “Uh, Amaya said you were waiting out here, why don’t you come inside?” He asks. I shrug, arms still wrapped around my legs.

“This yard was always so nice, and in case you forgot, Transmute City is cold as balls. It feels really good to finally see some sunshine...and some water that isn’t frozen.” I wrinkle my nose. He laughs, my heart almost gives out.

“And here I was, thinking you were being anti social.” He says, though his face grows a lot more serious immediately following. His silence could kill me, I want to ask what’s on his mind, but I understand I forfeited that right when I told him that I didn’t trust him and proceeded to climb into someone else's bed.

“I get that you guys are gonna wanna talk about me...I figured I could at least be decent enough to give you privacy while you did.” I admit. He raises a thin brow.

“What makes you think you’re that special?” He says it like he’s teasing but that’s more confusing than anything. Is he joking with me because he’s given up his animosity and loves me dearly or is he just having a normal, civil, cordial conversation with me? Once again, the fact that he’s impossible to read makes me want to shake him, but I keep my hands to myself.

“Well if Amaya were to bring a really poorly behaved dog here after swearing she's trained it now, you’d probably want to know if they’d pee on your carpet and eat your furniture before you let it inside, wouldn’t you?” I ask. He laughs again and I have to sit on my hands or I’m going to throw my arms around his neck and start begging that he take me back. Which he probably won’t do, ever. And I should accept that now.

“So, are you going to eat my furniture?” He asks and I chew my lip.

“I’m trying to be a lot more house broken in general now.” I say. His face goes soft, I look away. “I’ve been doing a lot of therapy. It’s not enjoyable...at all. But I’m doing it.”

Lea opens his mouth then closes it and looks away. Because I just dropped a load on his shoulders and how else could he be expected to handle that? We sit in fragile silence and finally, I get flustered. I pull my hands out from beneath me, flick my wrist and start to create waves in the creek, like an overly excited child sloshing around in the bathtub. Lea cocks his head to the side and watches the party tricks that have amounted to all I am good for.

“How’s selling the house?” I ask.

“There’s some stuff I’ve gotta fix up and maybe some painting that needs to be done before I put it up on the market, but it’s still a nice place, the realtor doesn’t think we’ll have any issues getting offers.” He assures me.

“You seriously don’t need to give me anything, Lea. This is your house, you take the money from it.” I insist.

“It’s our house, Rueki.” Lea corrects.

“I think I’ve been responsible for a total of three payments on it.” I admit.

“And our entire downpayment.” Lea remarks. 

“Well let me help fix things up, then.” I try. 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” He says, all of the color drains from my face, my skin prickles. 

“Oh, right, sorry.” I murmur.

“It hasn’t been a few months yet.” Lea tells me and my cheeks start to burn, the abrupt rush of heat has me bringing my hands, both metal and flesh up to cover my face. I slide them down, trying hard not to cave in on myself and instead, simply cup my cheeks and rest my elbows on my knees. To the untrained eye, it could just look like I was fidgeting, but Lea knows me intimately. “I’m happy you’re in therapy and working damn hard with physical therapy, but Rueks, you’ve gotta be doing this for you.”

“I am!” I snap, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. My eyes flick up to the sky. I am ready to fly the ship out of this world, but I try to think of ways I can be thankful for this moment. Instantly, I feel stupid, but a list in my head gives me something to focus on.

I do love this yard. Kairi, Riku and Sora are coming with us to Radiant Garden to finish the setup for the Keybearer school, but maybe I’ll stop in to say hi to the others before we go. Surely, Roxas must be bursting to tell me how school is going for him and Xion, even though he probably should be a lot less excited to see me if she is worried about him having romantic feelings for me. 

But I look at Lea and this starts to feel like a wasted trip. Maybe we are terrible for each other, maybe my progress derails the second I see him and I default to wanting so badly for him to want me that I’d give up anything else in the world.

Maybe I need to stop jumping to such extremes and just let this be.

“Sorry.” I murmur.

“You’re good.” He tells me, though he doesn’t look at me. “We always were pretty bad at being friends.” 

“No we weren’t.” I narrow my eyes as I stare into the creek. “Do you remember when we did face masks and played Verum Rex? Or what about all the times we had ice cream on the clock tower or went for runs together?” I ask. Lea’s face contorts.

“I guess it’s easy to overlook those things...all things considered.” He admits and all I can think is wow, great job, Rueki, great job ruining all of the forgiveness he might have been stockpiling in one conversation.

“Remember how you said you met Yozora?” I ask and Lea blinks, leaning back into his palms as he turns a little toward me.

“Sure.” He nods, I bite my lip.

“The woman that was with him, his Conductor? That’s my mom.” I crack a tentative smile and Lea’s eyes flash, the sun glints off of them and the shock that registers is tangible.

“Your...Rueki...damn.” He breathes. “That’s where I knew the name Mayris. I didn’t even think that you or Cid could’ve said it, I’m… I’m really sorry, I didn’t even think that--”

“Dude, don’t.” I shake my head. “I got to meet her, you didn’t take that from me.”

“Could've happened sooner.” He murmurs. “If I had--”

“I don’t want you to regret anything, Lea.” I curl in further on myself. “You did everything you could every step of the way, I didn’t give you a choice, and if I’m bad for you then...I really did mean it when I said you didn’t owe me an explanation. So if you can’t get past this all, I understand. And I hope whoever you end up with makes you happy, but I kind of had a shitty relationship. And you weren’t it. You were good.” I steal a glance at him, with his delicious parted lips, his face so soft in the hazy twilit sky. 

Lucidia comes barreling out of the house, throws her arms around my shoulders and screams ferociously as she tackles me straight toward the creek.

“We’re gonna live in a castle!” Lucidia shrieks as I brace myself, skidding in the dirt, narrowly avoiding short circuiting my legs in the creek. She giggles, the hem of her dress wet. I struggle to my feet but lift her up, holding her at an arm’s length.

“Does that make you a princess?” I ask her. Lucidia giggles.

“No, that’s silly!” She says, though I don’t know if she actually is a princess or what this weird, elected monarchy that Del’s apart of entails.

“Did you know your dad is a princess?” I ask her.

“Please stop telling my daughter I’m a princess.” When I turn upon hearing Dels voice, I see that Lea has risen, he’s tucked in tight to conversation with Skuld, Xion and Isa, further up the hill so I can’t hear what he’s possibly talking about, but that doesn’t stave the curiosity. 

I look at him like if I stare long enough, I’ll be able to read his mind. 

“You are a Princess of Heart!” Kairi comes skipping out of the house and her eyes light up as she sees me. “You’re standing!” She throws her hands up and comes barreling down the hill. Riku heaves a sigh and shrugs as he and Sora venture out of the house.

“I can’t keep her contained, you’re her weakness.” Riku admits and I laugh, setting Lucidia on the ground. Kairi locks her arms around me and squeezes me tight.

“Hi Rueki!” Sora waves.

“Yo, kid, are you dating my girlfriend yet, or am I gonna need to step in?” I ask. Sora colors, Kairi releases me and crosses her arms to her chest. 

“I hate you.” She mutters.

“The setup for our Keyblade school is going great, thanks for asking.” Sora’s getting better at deflecting. I crack a smile, Kairi weaves her hands through my hair.

“Why have you never had your hair short before? It looks so good!” She tells me, I look at Lea, he looks at me and I wonder if he knows I’m holding my breath on a compliment from him.

“Honestly, I was just ready to be done with the red. I never brushed it anyway, and being dead and buried is a really good way to ruin it.” I admit. “Besides, I got the red cuz you were dead. You’re not anymore, I don’t need to pay tribute to you in that way, I can call you and tell you how proud I am of you. My little island recluse, teaching perspective Keybearers.” I squeeze Kairi’s shoulders. She flushes, turning almost the color of her hair. 

“Well then we’ll have to get you like a black streak for Vanitas or something. You guys were close, you said, right?” Kairi asks. My mouth twists.

“I don’t think I want to hold onto him like that. He had a really rough go at life. He deserves to rest now.” He chose his end, just like I chose to come back. For once, no one can take that from either of us. I’m glad that his death could be in his hands since his life wasn’t. He deserved at least that much. 

“That’s very selfless of you.” Riku remarks, I shrug. 

“Therapy has to be good for something, right?” I offer.

“And whatever it isn’t, I can be there for.” Kairi insists. “If there’s anything you need, you can always let me know.”

“Let any of us know.” Sora pipes up and I smile, heart warming. This, moments like these are why this trip was not a waste. The love I felt for not just Vanitas, but Elrena, Emyd, Ludor and Lauriam was more important to me than the love I tried to feel for Luxu. I have a lot better handle on platonic love in my life, it’s a lot safer to celebrate this right now.

I’m thankful that I can. 

“Thanks guys...Um Kairi, actually, if you guys are gonna be in Radiant Garden...I don’t know where you’re all living now, but if you wouldn’t mind staying a couple nights with me at Cid’s ...even just one would be--”

“Of course I’ll stay with you, are you kidding?” Kairi laughs. “The boys have been staying at the island, and you know how crazy it drives me to be there. I don’t know how you guys can do it.” Kairi shoots Riku and Sora a pointed look and Sora just chuckles, folding his arms behind his head.

“Hey, this is the first time I’ve gotten to really enjoy my mom’s cooking and sleep in my bed in such a long time!” Sora insists. 

“Do you know how relaxing it feels to have sand between your toes?” Riku asks. Kairi snorts.

“I can’t take these two anywhere.” She sighs, I laugh and squeeze her in another hug. 

“Well, stay as many nights as you want, or as little. Even just one means a lot, Kai. Seriously.” I assure her. She beams, eyes so bright and shining, even still. The screen door opens up again, Amaya leads the way out, a bag under her arm. Roxas follows and he looks right at me as though the sun rises and sets with me. I wave at him. 

“Rueki, your hair looks so good!” Roxas takes off toward me and I color from hairline to neck. What a damn shit show. Xion looks at me, pain in her eyes. I wave at her, smiling brightly. She responds with a delicate wave.

It’s fine, I tell myself, if she hates me. Roxas and I both know what our relationship is, and I was a damn shitty friend to Xion. 

Actions have consequences, I’ve always been aware of that. I think it’s gonna be a long, long time before I can wake up and think that I’m no longer my past and I can start becoming my future. For the first time I’m hopeful that such a mindset can be a possibility.

There’s plenty of catching up done with Roxas, a little with Xion, Skuld and Isa. I hug Amaya goodbye, I steal about a thousand more glances at Lea, but don’t exchange another word with him before Sora, Riku, Kairi, Del, Lucidia and I pile into the ship. I don’t stop thinking about him, even when we touch down in Radiant Garden.

\--

There’s a bar at the edge of town that my mom used to frequent.

That’s what Cid tells me when I text Neku and beg him to figure out if my mom can text when she’s in a shop, just like she can talk with the living when she's in one. He replies with a text full of ellipses and tells me it’s hella rude to ignore him for a year. I don’t tell him that I died, I apologize and let him be mad long enough to procure an answer, and my mom’s phone number, which I scrawl down for Cid. He looks at the sheet of paper like it holds the secret to answers he didn’t think he could ever have and with my flesh hand, I squeeze his shoulder.

“You okay?” I ask him, as he marvels at the note.

“You know your way around this place she’s at?” Cid murmurs, I crack a smile.

“I did before I died.” I reply. He snorts.

“Well, when your ass is ready to run marathons, we should take a trip.” He tells me. I bite my lips.

“I’ll probably never been running marathons, Ienzo isn’t sure the muscles in my legs will ever be repaired enough for me to walk without these.” I say, tapping the support attached to my hips. Cid shoots me this absolutely baffled look, like the words coming out of my mouth are a foreign language for him.

“So what, you’re just gonna be a couch potato? Mooch around my house? No plans for your life?” He asks, though without the malice I start to convince myself I hear. My face colors, I pull my hand back and clench my fist, fingernails biting just a little into my palm before I release them. No, I tell myself. Relapse happens, feeling better isn’t going to be linear, I hear that in every single therapy session, it’s been drilled hard enough into my mind, but I am not ever slipping back into this. “Kid…”

“I know.” I still wrap my hands around my arms. “I really don’t know what to do anymore.”

“You were piloting for a while, weren’t ya?” He asks, I shrug.

“I love flying. But I think I want something a little more active… I guess it just depends on if my body will let that happen.” I explain. Once again, I’ve left Cid at a loss, a child he never asked to love and lose, the most hellacious thing this realm could have asked him to parent. I tuck my hair back behind my ear and take a step back. “I’m trying though, every day. And we don’t need to wait a long time for me to go back to Shibuya or Shinjuku. I’ve got friends out that way, it’ll be nice to see them, whenever you wanna, we’ll go.” 

Cid makes this involuntary face that tells me everything he said about being unnerved if my mom and dad burst into the room after he grieved them was either a lie, or I single handedly desensitized him by coming back. He’s so excited I can almost taste it, buzzing in the air around us.

“You should go hang out with your friends, where are you kids going again?” He asks, I try to recall.

“Some bar called Seventh Heaven?” I ask, Cid snorts.

“Your mom, dad and I used to grab drinks there all the time.” He tells me. “Tifa’s bartending there now, tip her good.”

There’s a bar at the edge of town that my mom used to frequent, and Cid sends me there like I'm just some regular ass adult about to meet her regular ass friends.

The door opens, a bell chimes. The bar isn’t busy, but with only Tifa manning the ship, it seems a lot more hectic. A group of men sit at the bar, her eyes flick up and she smiles. I’ve only met Tifa in passing, but I’m sure Aerith’s told her plenty. 

“Rueki!” My name comes from one of the few tables scattered through the dimly lit space. Elrena, Ludor and Emyd are seated at said table, my heart clenches in my chest.

I see them and I see the absence of those who used to sit beside us. I can’t do this. I take a step back and almost bolt for the door when I feel someone’s hip bump mine.

“Hey there, stranger.” Yuffie’s bubbly voice sounds off behind me, I turn and can’t help but mirror the smile she wears, it is literally contagious. 

“Hey, what are you doing here?” For a moment I forget that Yuffie and I are both whole ass adults, and that she has no need to explain herself to me about why she is in a bar. She just laughs and smiles this knowing little smile.

“Just meeting someone here.” She says, though she says it like she’s harboring some delicious little secret. “Del says you’re in town for a little while though, we’ll have to do something. Things are usually a lot more exciting when you’re around.” She winks at me and takes off toward an empty table, fumbling through the pocket of her shorts for her phone. I take a deep breath, thankful for the pause, and make my way to my table, pulling out a chair and sinking down opposite Elrena. 

“You don’t look like a corpse anymore.” Is Emyd’s really classy, tactful greeting.

“Your hair looks good.” Ludor says to me.

“You’re walking.” Elrena states and I laugh, feeling a little lighter. 

“Okay, we all suck at small talk, catch me up on what’s been going on here.” I beg, realizing how thankful I am for a distraction of constantly talking about how I’m doing. Of course I’m always starving to deflect, but it becomes increasingly more clear to me that I haven’t been doing a lot of that lately, no wonder I’m eager to talk about anyone but myself, it’s like I’m getting vulnerability whiplash. 

“El and I have been all over the place. It’s crazy to go back to the worlds we used to fight Heartless in the first time we had Keyblades, they’re so much more peaceful now. And there’s a world where I turned into a merman and one where I was a pirate.” Emyd tells me, Elrena rolls her eyes.

“I hated that world. Buncha drunkards calling me a wench.” Elrena grumbles. Emyd chuckles and kisses her cheekbone, she glows like fairy lights. 

“You liked hunting for crabs.” He reminds her, she shoots him a glare.

“I hated that, have you ever seen a crab? They are the nastiest, creepiest things in this realm, they are like giant spiders with armor on them, the only thing they’re good for are eating, but I don’t even like seafood so what’s the point?” Elrena heaves a sigh.

“You’re such a picky eater.” Emyd laughs like it is the single cutest trait a significant other could possibly possess.

“I like bread.” Elrena says flatly. I crack a grin, curling my hand under my chin.

“Well, since these two are busy traveling all over the realm, how’s the school going? What's it like teaching a bunch of dumb kids how to hold a Keyblade?” I ask Ludor whose face immediately shifts.

“It is off to a good start though certainly your husband has told you the difficulty associated with recruiting .” Ludor says. 

I really wish I could get drunk right now. 

“Lea and I aren’t back together, we haven't really talked.” I say, hoping that seals off the conversation, but I seem to have forgotten that these are the same shameless gossips who embedded themselves into that relationship before we were all even really friendly. 

“So you’re not here scouting for new houses?” Emyd asks.

“No, I’m staying with Cid.” I admit.

“So where is he intending to move to, Skuld has mentioned he’s selling your house.” Ludor asks.

“I don’t know, he doesn’t really want to tell me about his life.” I admit. 

“Are you okay?” Elrena asks me, my face colors. No, I’m not and she’s got to be hyper aware of this.

“I’d be a lot more okay if we had food properly in us.” I admit.

“On that.” A female voice sounds off from beside us, I turn and Tifa smiles right at us, warmth radiating off of her very person. She’s gotta do well in tips even without my help, cuz like wow she is gorgeous. “What can I get you guys?”

We put in for food and drinks and the second TIfa is gone, so is any sense of conversationalism any of us could have possibly had.

“So...if you’re not here looking for houses, what are you here for?” Emyd asks.

“Not that we’re not all over the moon to see you.” Ludor insists.

“Right, totally.” Emyd agrees, Elrena rolls her eyes.

“She’s a free woman, she can do whatever the fuck she needs to do.” Elrena says, snapping right to my defense. 

“Right, totally, I know.” Emyd says, then he makes a face. “Are you and Axel not back together cuz he doesn’t want to be or are you in love with Vanitas?”

“Omigod!” I clap my hands over my face.

“Dumbass!” Elrena’s got her elbow in his arm when I come up for air.

“What? You told everyone you guys got together…” Emyd protests, and I’m remembering why it’s important that I’m in therapy, because when I’m lashing out, I’m completely careless with my words. It’s a lot nicer to scream my frustrations to someone who is being paid to put up with me.

“We hooked up once, it was never like that, he told me all the time how ugly he thought I was and even I’m smart enough not to fall in love with the literal embodiment of darkness.” I groan.

“Damn.” Emyd mutters, and with absolutely no discretion, pulls a sack of munny out of his pocket and hands it to Ludor.

“Did you take bets on my love life?” I choke.

“You’d think Emyd would know better than to place bets against me after all this time, hmm?” Ludor asks and I burst out laughing.

“Hey, I travel the realm, I don't have a job, taking bets on other people’s lives is my idea of a wild time.” Emyd replies.

“I, on the other hand, have better things to be doing. But if Emyd wants to empty his pockets to me, I’ll indulge him.” Ludor grins, I card a hand through my hair. 

“I think it's a little ude that none of you have the decency to be chain smokers that I can bum off of.” Not that I particularly enjoyed smoking Reno’s cigarette, but at least it would be a distraction from this.

“Can’t smoke in this bar anyway.” Someone comes up behind me and ruffles my hair. I turn, eyebrow lifted. Del flashes me a wink.

“Don’t you have king shit to do?” I ask him.

“Sometimes.” He agrees. “Don’t worry, I’m not crashing your party.” 

“Awe, but we haven’t gotten to hang out in forever.” Emyd gripes and Del straight up gives him the sweetest, most sympathetic look. Are these two friends?

“I know man, seriously, like you’ve seen my schedule, this date is gonna maybe last twenty minutes before I have to head back to the damn castle. I could really use some help, maybe pile an advisor?” He shoots Emyd a pointed look and Emyd wrinkles his nose. “Okay, come on, come be the court musician, please!” 

“Omigod, you do not need the extra excuse to suck my boyfriend’s dick.” Elrena complains and my eyebrows shoot straight up. Oh, these two are best friends. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but considering they didn’t even know each other before the battle in Daybreak Town… It dawns on me that their connection to me is what introduced the two of them and my heart actually swells, suddenly realizing that things have fallen apart a lot because of me. But Del found someone, a friend that hero worships him in tandem because of me. Emyd got his memories back after a conversation with me. It occurs to me that not everything I touch does actually burst into flames.

And with that, Del heads off and slides up to a table right beside....

“Yuffie?” I say out loud. 

“Yeah, they’ve been hanging out a lot lately.” Emyd nods. I watch the way they greet each other, high energy, euphoric, huge smiles, bright eyes. There’s no clinging to each other in utter desperation, there’s no light magic involved but they both look high on something altogether as they talk, lips moving at a rapid fire pace. I tell myself it’s gotta be a soulmate thing, mine and Lea’s connection was just too deep, that would be suffocating to anyone.

“And Emyd’s just been crying his little heart out over it.” Elrena teases, and I watch them now, her leering at him.

“Well what am I supposed to do without...what did you call him, my super special butt buddy?” 

Elrena laughs, unable to help herself, nearly snorting out her drink and my heart leaps up into my chest. It’s not a soulmate thing. Not at all. It’s a Rueki is a piece of trash that put everything onto one person’s shoulders thing. I look back to Del and Yuffie, her leering forward, him grinning from ear to ear and I think holy shit, that is it. That’s what I want, that’s what I had for the brief times that I was not actively attempting to sabotage my relationship because I needed something to go wrong just so I could take on a new project. My jaw is dropped, I bring a hand to my heart, Ludor’s eyes meet mine.

“Love are you quite alright?” He asks and I finally shut my mouth and nod, flooding with some deep warming satisfaction.

“Uh, yeah, I think I just finally realized something good. Real good.” My therapist is going to be so happy with me. 

“Sounds like you need a real drink.” Elrena says, flagging Tifa over with the wave of her hand. I laugh.

“Won’t do anything, I can’t get drunk.” I reply, her eyes flash.

“What?” Emyd balks.

“Too much Elixir in my system still, it processes everything and heals everything too fast...including mind altering substances.” I explain.

“Well that sounds gross.” Elrena wrinkles her nose.

“One of the many reasons I try to half my intake, daily.” I say.

“And you’re able to do that and still walk, that’s really cool.” Emyd nods.

“How is that all going?” Ludor asks, I roll my eyes.

“Slower than I want, kind of foils my future plans to go be some hired badass in Midgar with some pretty looking guy.” I curl my lips into a pout and realize that wow, that really is all Reno can be to me. He’s just some pretty looking guy and I don't necessarily want that.I look at the way that Elrena and Emyd’s pinkies are laced on top of the table and think that I’m so sick of chasing the remnants of what that feels like. I had that, I’m thankful I did. Now I have this, and whether or not I can get drunk, whether or not I can run marathons, I can be satisfied, but not chasing remnants.

“That might be tricky, even if you were fully functional.” Elrena wrinkles her nose.

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“Well, Em and I popped over to Midgar like six or seven months ago and ran into Reno and Rude.” Elrena says, my face goes ghostly.

“Oh, he thinks I’m dead.” I speculate, she snorts.

“Not that I think he’d be surprised that you aren't anymore.” Elrena cracks a smile. “If you want his number, I’ll give it to you.”

“Yes!” Instinct answers that question for me, apparently. I’m a little embarrassed by the sheer amount of gusto. “I mean, like, for backup plan purposes. I’m gonna need a job eventually…” I muse.

“Mmm, right, we’ll go with that.” Elrena taunts.

\--

I bite my lip and stare at my phone, curled up into bed, I almost call Reno, I almost text him, I almost just want to dive into a new goal of being physically able enough to be able to work with him so that I can bury myself in the tumultuous obsession of another dangerous, charismatic man. But--

But I can’t get out of my head the way Del looked with Yuffie. The way Emyd looked with Elrena. That easy, breathless, lighter than air affection that didn’t look or feel like shackles or...or an anvil. I chew on my lip and suck in a breath.

I just need to do this.

I find Lea’s contact in my phone and type up a message.

‘Hey, so I know you need some space so I’m just gonna say this and I won’t bug you anymore, and I swear to God, Lea, this isn’t like me trying to change your mind or rush you I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry and not have something up my sleeve when I say it… It’s coming to my attention that I might have used you and latched onto our relationship as a way to feel like I had connection, like you could be my only connection and like if I dealt with enough shit I didn’t like that I could take it all back out on you and get away with whatever I want and I’m really sorry that I did that to you. I um...didn’t really realize that it could possibly feel any other way. And I know it doesn’t do anything, but I’m sorry I put that on you. I don’t think I want to get drowned in someone else ever again so I really understand why you’d feel the same. The offer still stands, if you need any help on the house I’m happy to. Even if you wanna let me work on it while you’re at work and have Isa supervise me so you can feel good about me not doing anything dumb. Um, I don’t really know how to end this, so have a good night.’

I want to tell him I hope he gets everything he’s looking for, I hope someone loves him in the way I didn’t, I hope someone holds him tight but not in the choke hold I did, and above all, I wish I didn’t fuck up what I had with him, because even though it hasn’t been three months, I didn’t see the same thing in his eyes or hear in his words, the affection that used to be there. 

But I don’t say that. I don’t text Reno, I just turn my phone off and suck in a breath, staring at the ceiling. I was really bad at being in a relationship, lesson learned. Maybe this space is for the best, maybe I really need to figure out how to just be by myself, because suddenly, the clock ticked by and I became that person who had been with someone for so long that she forgot how to be alone.

In the dark, with my bedroom door locked, with Kairi spending one final night at her place before packing her stuff up to join me, I slip a hand down into my pajama pants, past my underwear, anxiety spiking in my throat. I need to figure out how to be alone, and now, finally feeling courageous, I need to figure out if this is even a possibility.

I prepare myself for the impending meltdown, but my fingers brush my clit and I clap my metal hand over my mouth to shut myself the hell up.

I’m sensitive. I’m incredibly sensitive and it’s been so long since I’ve been touched there and my body responds with jerky hips and a picked up heartbeat. Okay but does this mean…

I keep working at myself, delighted by how I react to my own touch, to my own hand. My thumb continues pulsing at my clit, I dip my fingers into myself and my body emits an involuntary electric shock that sends me straight over the edge.

Tears start pouring down my cheeks, I try really hard not to burst into euphoric laughter, but it’s to no avail, I turn my face into my pillow and laugh and cry and watch an entire realm of possibilities I’d closed myself off to, blossom.


	66. Chapter 66

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovely humans and I hope you guys had a happy Halloween! After this chapter, we have one more chapter in this fic, one more in Tempest and the epilogue. Wild, right?  
I've got everything all nice and squared away so that I would be able to begin the au fic today, without interruption so here's what the posting schedule will look like :   
Today : this chapter   
Tomorrow : the final chapter   
Tuesday : the final chapter in Tempest   
Wednesday : the epilogue   
Since I am done editing, as my thank you to everyone still reading, I wanted to give them to you guys all at once. Have an awesome day and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

LXV.

A ray of ice comes right at me, I leap over it, landing hard on both feet, internal and external skeleton shuddering. My eyes fly wide, pupils dilated. A blade comes sailing straight toward my back, I spring over onto my hands, coming down on bended knee to avoid the strike. A blast of lightning sails at me, I redirect it straight through the current in my body and send it back. A grenade smashes into my face, I tuck and roll as it detonates, but I’m not immune to the blast and go crashing straight into a wall. The smoke clears, I stare up at Del, Sora and Elrena, who look like they’re all holding their breath on me. Kairi grins at me and launches herself across the arena, skidding on her knees over to me.

“Omigod you are doing so good, what the hell Rueki? No one gets hurt like you but fuck, no one heals like you!” She throws her arms around me, Elrena laughs a little, uninterested in the blatant display of emotion that Kairi offers me. Del and Sora just exchange concerned looks until I put my arms around Kairi in return, hugging her tight. 

“Let’s go again.” I suggest.

“Hey, don’t wear yourself out.” Emyd offers, from where he strums his sitar right behind a barrier. Riku’s at his side, eyes narrowed as he observes me and then finally, his face softens.

The training room Ienzo set up for us in the basement of the lab is something just shy of perfection, a place wrapped in a barrier so Emyd doesn’t have to deal with ‘such a hassle’ as my rehabilitation and Del’s typically able to sit in and read through propositions. But with a little more freedom in his schedule today, he’s able to join our training endeavors while Riku observes and dissects the hell out of my movements.

But that’s a good thing. Sparring with someone new keeps me on my toes, a place I don’t so much mind being anymore. 

I don’t keep track anymore of how long it’s been since I woke up from the dead. Probably in the realm of three months. I don’t have feeling in my legs, Ienzo thinks it’s unlikely I ever will but…

...But my heart is filling in the gaps of what is missing. With shiny, clean filler. With a new circle containing the Unversed symbol and plenty of other clear glass on the edges, shiny and soft like plastic wrap, still waiting to be filled in but not longer completely jagged. I can’t feel my legs, but the muscle tissue is being repaired, slowly, unsteadily but surely, and my heart feels like the first blooming flower in ice frozen ground. It feels like a phoenix from the ashes, it feels like the very first breath.

“Your Keyblade looks different.” Riku observes, leaning over the barricade. I chew on my lip and look down at my blade. It’s not like I didn’t notice too. The way the jagged blades swirl with both fire and lightning the same way Elrena’s swirls with just lightning, as though my heart is far too reminiscent of things past. The unversed symbol dangling from the Keychain of my Keyblade is certainly reminiscent of things past. I cock my head to the side and shrug.

“You know, it actually feels better in my hand like this.” I admit. Riku’s expression cracks into a grin and it warms me from head to toe.

“Well you’re definitely more well rounded with your defenses, but your legs still shake every time you take a hit.” He informs me then his brow ruffles again. “I’m not nitpicking, I just know you want to know.”

“I do.” I agree.

“You are slower.” Elrena nods. 

“And your endurance is down.” Sora rubs the back of his neck.

“Hey, what about not nitpicking?” Kairi asks, arms crossed to her chest.

“I can take some constructive criticism, man.” I tease her, bumping her shoulder with mine. “How am I ever supposed to get stronger if no one tells me what I suck at?” Certainly training like this is unique, it’s like relearning my fighting style all together and having to make compromises in the gaping spots where I’m coming up short. Still, it feels damn good to move like this again, to know that I’m still strong. 

“What do you need to be stronger for?” Kairi pouts. I meet her with a leveled stare. I haven’t texted Reno yet. When I’m not even close to par with what I used to be, I really don’t see a point. Texting Reno for small talk is a slippery slope that will default in me rushing headlong away from my own recovery, toward focusing my energy on someone else. Because allegedly, that’s a thing I do. 

And maybe compromising for someone I’m not head over heels in love with hasn’t worked out well for me in the past, so I should stop thinking it can in the future.

“Well eventually I’m gonna need to stop hiding out at Cid’s house and get like a real, grown up job and not mooch off my friends.” I remind her.

“No you don’t, you can live with me forever.” She throws her arms dramatically around me and I cackle.

“You two desperately need a room.” Elrena smirks.

“You can join us.” I offer.

“Yeah, you can join them.” Emyd agrees. Elrena shoots him a scathing look, which I’m pretty sure means ‘I love you, you dumb twat’, because they both crack the hell up.

“Are you not going to go back to piloting?” Del asks, I shrug.

“I think I need something a little more…” What’s the word? “When I’m flying, I have a lot of fun. But I have too much time on my hands, and too much of an excuse for my brain to do something I don’t want, and to be honest, I think it’d be dope to have a career that wasn’t just fun but like...deeply fulfilling.” 

“You’re such a cliche.” Elrena informs me. “Focusing on your career.” But she winks at me, so I just lean back into my hands and accept it for what it is.

“Well at this rate, I’ll be able to get drunk again soon, so I need something to fuel my bad habits.” Oh, bad joke. I don’t really care though.

“What about the Elixir?” Riku asks, brows shooting up. I grin, wickedly.

“I’m down to one a day.” With painstaking, imperfect, rapid tapering. My body is repairing itself and that is the daily, constant reminder I need that healing is possible. Things like my body are a lot more controllable and linear than my mind, but fuck, it’s something. 

Kairi looks at me with stars in her eyes, I flush, the weight of her stare too much for me. I bring my legs up to my chest and she downright squeals at the movement.

“Omigod, can we please get back to talking about why you and Sora aren’t making out yet? I really miss that conversation.” I inform her. Sora clears his throat.

“Um, you know what, the kids’ll be arriving at the school this week, we should probably go...um, scrub the floors again. Yep, yeah, that’s really important, it was good seeing you, Rueki!” Sora waves and downright scampers away, causing Riku to burst out into the most raucous laughter I’ve ever seen from him. My phone buzzes in my pocket, as Kairi and I stand. I lift an eyebrow and pull it out, breath catching in my throat when I see who the message is from. Oh, Twilight.

Lea.

He hasn’t texted me back since the message I sent him.

“Sora’s right, we should get stuff finished up.” Riku admits. 

“Okay, you have to take a picture of Rueki and I first!” Kairi demands, retrieving her own phone as I quickly jam mine back into my pocket and throwing it at Riku, who miraculously catches it. My heart is already missing beats, I know that I could really go for some privacy when I open that...whatever Lea sent.

I’m not optimistic, but I am and the utter strain almost makes me stop breathing altogether. 

But Kairi curls an arm around me and I wrap one on her, setting a hand on my hip to stabilize myself in our pose. She flashes a peace sign, Riku shakes his head but snaps a picture and tosses the phone back to Kairi. She releases me to catch it and hums as she looks it over.

“It’s good!” She grins, I look over her shoulder and blink, staring back at the me on the screen. It’s still exceedingly weird to see short hair that doesn’t cover any of my face. It’s weird that there was a time when the thought of smiling and snapping a picture with this girl would’ve been too much for me to even consider. “Can I post it?” She asks.

“Whatever you want.” I nod. 

“Okay.” She says, giddily posting it to Kingstagram. She steals another quick hug and then her and Riku head out. He turns though, looking to me.

“You worked hard today, but let’s focus on stamina instead, tomorrow. I’ll see you for a run first thing in the morning.” He suggests. I wrinkle my nose.

“I’m going to hate you tomorrow.” I insist.

“I’m sure you will.” He grins, but follows Kairi out. My phone buzzes again as Elrena looks at Emyd.

“You ready to go?” She asks him. He pouts, dispersing his sitar.

“We can’t just hang out here all day?” He asks.

“You guys totally could, in fact I could get you both jobs here, you’d never have to leave town, we can hang out every day and--” Del starts but Elrena huffs. 

“Oh Twilight, no.” She says. “I can’t stay still that long. Besides, don’t let Em fool you, he’d throw a downright tantrum if we couldn’t head out to Neverland.”

“Because there are pirates! And the water is so nice!” Emyd sighs. “And you love terrorizing that kid in the fox onesie.” 

“That I do.” She smirks. “Don’t be a stranger.” She demands of me, and I know better than to deny her. 

Her and Emyd head out and once just Del and I are in the room, I pull my phone out of my pocket.

“You’re seriously down to one Elixir and you can do all that?” Del asks me, taking an anxious step closer to me. He suddenly is approaching me the way a very small animal would be approaching a predator and that alerts my senses.

“I mean, most days. Some I need a little more, but yeah, I’ve consistently cut down.” I admit. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

“I’m not looking at you like anything.” He says, a little too innocently.

“I’m not buying it.” I set a hand on my hip and contemplate opening up my text right then and there if he’s not gonna spill his guts.

“Okay, fine, everyone’s sick of me offering them jobs, but I do need help. Serious, good, reliable help. I know both Aeleus and Dilan are going to want to retire from the guard here soon, and no, I don’t need guys standing outside the castle gates. But I do need a bodyguard.” He says and my face flushes.

“Del…” I trail off. “I’m not strong enough to protect you any more than you can yourself.”

“But you are, Rueki. And where you’re falling short, I know you’re trying to make up for that! And I know you can! You’re getting so much stronger every day, you’re observant, you’re resourceful and if I’m being honest, there’s no one I trust more than you to have my back. Not as the king, but as me.” He sets a hand to his chest. I chew my lips.

It sounds perfect, really. Because it’s not fighting for a nameless boss, or for someone I don’t want to protect. It would be a job where I worked to defend something I love, something I’m bound to do anyway, something I know won’t ask more than I can give…

But the problem is, do I really want to set up roots here when the day comes where Lea tells me he doesn’t love me anymore and that our marriage is officially over? Or will I want to leave? Will I want to run as far and fast as I can? And if I do, should I, or should I challenge that? Because truly, I don’t know what I want. And the worst thing I can do is make that promise to Del before I’m ready.

“Can I...can I have some time?” I ask. His face falls and I sigh. “Dude, let me decide how I handle things with Lea, let me go to therapy, let me sort this out.”

“Ugh, you’re getting frustratingly well adjusted.” He tells me, but he hugs me tight. “I’m gonna fuck with you, but seriously, no pressure.”

“You’re sweet as hell, if you ever tell anyone I said anything nice at you, I’ll kick you in the shin, but you are the sweetest person ever, Del.” I squeeze him back and when we part, he’s grinning wickedly.

“Joke’s on you, I know you’ll go down hard if I kick you first.” He smirks. “So who’s blowing up your phone?” 

“Lea.” I admit, opening up the text.

Lea: Hey I just want you to know that we’re probably putting the house up on the market sometime this week...I’m not trying to work you to the bone or anything, but IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, we could use a fresh coat of paint in the kitchen. We’ve got an early morning doing prep at school tomorrow, so again, totally up to you, but you said you wanted to help…

Omigod he’s as awkward as me. That is precious.

Lea: Seriously, no pressure, only if you want to, I don’t want to be that dick and I know we haven’t talked a lot, but you said you wanted to help, so if you want to, it’s all you.

Lea: I hope you’re having a good day

Lea: Isa is making dinner btw, you could join us, Roxas and Xion are staying the night so you’d be able to see them too

“So what’s up?” Del asks, noticing, I’m sure, the way my face starts to light.

“Looks like I’m painting a kitchen.” I reply.

“Is that a good thing?” He asks.

“Damn, I sure hope so.” 

\--

The front door of a home that used to be mine is even more daunting than having to ask Elrena to open me up a portal of light. But knock on it, I do, and I’m met by possibly the person in the house--maybe in the whole realm--who is most excited to see me.

“Rueki!” Roxas straight up tackles me in a hug, swooping me up off my feet and into the house.

“Damn, do you ever stop growing?” I ask, swatting his shoulder, desperate for him to put me down. He does, only after twirling me and straight up jutting me backward to look me over.

“You look like you’re stronger.” He tells me and I clear my throat, tucking my hair back and looking over his shoulder to where Xion sits on the couch. She’s got a text book sprawled across her lap, but she looks up at us.

“Hey!” I wave at her. “Your hair looks good.” And it does. Like Kairi, she’s got a small area of her hair buzzed down short, and the rest of her hair has been styled into an edgy, texturized pixie. She flashes me a strained smile, even as I weasel away from Roxas. 

“Thanks. Are you doing well?” She asks.

“Better.” I offer. “How’s school going?” 

“It’s going good, I think I’m going to drop out next semester though, to be honest. The education I get from Even and Ienzo is a lot more specific for what I want to do, and I don’t need a degree to work with them.” She shrugs.

“Good for you, college is expensive, if you can do exactly what you want without it, don’t waste your time or money, life’s too short for that.” I tell her. Her cheeks flush, she bites back a smile and looks down at her book again. Beside me, Roxas doesn’t particularly appear happy with that decision, probably because right now his girlfriend is in school with and lives with him, who knows how that arrangement will change if she’s in Radiant Garden, but honestly, Xion deserves a lotta bit of unconditional support.

“Isa’s almost finished with dinner, are you hungry?” Skuld is leaning against the kitchen counter, looking lithe like an alley cat, her hair spilling down across the counter.

“Are you offering?” I crack a smile.

“She is, I’m not.” Isa says. 

“Do you have a rule against feeding strays?” I lift an eyebrow.

“Especially ones intent to claw at the door and demand food.” Isa turns over his shoulder, a glint in his eyes. I bite back a massive grin.

“Hmm, well what if I promise not to come back to your door?” I ask.

“I’d prefer we just adopt you altogether, if I’m being completely honest.” Isa tells me, and that’s it, I color up to my hairline, looking around.

“Where’s Lea?” I ask, though my mind tells me he’s just avoiding me. He’s probably not even here yet, that’s probably the reason he invited me over in the first place, is cuz he has other plans for the night. 

“Showering, we just got home from work.” Skuld tells me as I head over into the kitchen, taking a seat beside her at the island. 

And now I have the visual of Lea showering in my head and that’s everything I’ve ever needed, damn. 

“Lo and behold they both have employable skills.” Isa smirks.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“I work at an ice cream shop on the beach.” He tells me and I almost burst out laughing, but then I realize he’s being quite serious. 

“No shit.” Isa working in customer service is genuinely something I never would have expected.

“So who’s the bum now?” He asks.

“Me, definitely me.” I admit. 

“Why are you a bum?” Lea’s voice sounds off from the archway into the kitchen, I turn and there goes my poor, fragile heart again.

He’s properly clothed, in a pair joggers and a T-shirt, but he’s still toweling off his hair and it looks so damn soft and it’s like every time I see him, his features become somehow more chiseled and his eyes are somehow greener. I pick up the scent of his soap from here and want to bury my face in his chest. Somehow, I stay rooted to the island.

“Because you and Skuld are training future Keybearers and Xion is learning a ton from Ienzo and Even and Roxas is in college and even Isa has a real job.” I somehow manage to speak. I’m second guessing my words. Which is dumb. Because Isa’s throwaway comment about adopting me doesn’t mean a single thing. Lea never responded to my novel length text about me expecting too much from him, Lea has never expressed specifically that he wants to get back together with me, so I should probably stop putting the idea in my own damn head and enjoy the ability to do housework. It’d be idiotic to have hope.

“Well you’re painting a kitchen.” He tells me and I nod.

“That I am, do we have paint?” I ask.

“We’ve got swatches, you choose whatever color you want.” He shrugs, nodding his head toward the kitchen table. I get up and walk over to it, linking my arms behind my back as I look at the swatches laid out, all of warm colors: golds, yellows, oranges, reds, browns. I chew my lip and make a decision.

“Okay, I’ll go pick it up now.” The walk to and from the house to the local hardware store might be pushing it with this morning’s sparring session, but I’m actually eager for it.

“Can you make it?” Lea blinks and I laugh, setting a hand on my hip.

“It’s cute that you’re all pretending you’re not shameless gossips. I’m down to one Elixir a day, and I either spar or go for a run every morning, I can handle a walk.” I grin, though seriously, this is pushing it. Lea stares back with parted lips though and I realize that whatever the others have to say about me, he isn’t caught up in it. “Oh, you didn’t know. Sorry, that was shitty of me.” I wrinkle my nose. He only looks further stricken.

“You hated running.” He says when he speaks and I casually want to rip my hair out, because what does that even mean?

“I can’t feel how tired my legs get anymore.” Wow. Great sentence, Rueki. Good job, that’s definitely the way to win the guy back. What a flirt. “It also helps with like anxiety stuff...so you know, coping mechanisms.” What an eloquent queen I am. “I’m going to go get the paint now.”

“Oh, okay.” Lea says and with that, I take off out the door, wondering if tonight would be a bad night to take off and start over in Midgar. Maybe I can’t work with Reno, but I could definitely dress up like a bumblebee at a bar and hide from all of my embarrassment.

I make it to the hardware store and back, pleasantly surprised that my legs don’t feel like they’re going to give. Pleasantly surprised that I’m able to take in the colors of the sky and buildings without the bitter taste of things lost sitting at the back of my tongue. 

“You took forever, we ate your dinner.” Isa informs me as I walk in with two gallons at hand, even though he is just now plating dinner.

“Joke’s on you, I planned that cuz I knew you poisoned my meal. I stopped at the bistro instead.” Why am I actually quick on my feet and like, actually normal to anyone other than the man I would dance at the chance to get back with.

I set the gallons down in the corner of the kitchen and take the plates with food already on them over to the dinner table as the others start to migrate to it.

“You don’t need to do that, Rueki.” Roxas informs me.

“But I can. So let me.” I plead. He goes to grab a plate out of my hand, but I jerk it back, set it on the table and stick my tongue out at him. “I went for a walk and still have energy, aren’t I allowed to be excited?” I ask.

“To do chores?” He makes a face, I burst out laughing.

“Sit down and be grateful for the free food, child.” 

Fortunately, Roxas and Isa sit on either side of me so I don’t have to risk the awkward brush or bump of Lea’s hand against mine. Unfortunately, Lea is across the table from me which means I am constantly staring at him, and am constantly worried that I’m going to brush my feet across his, and it’s going to look like I’m not respecting his space when really, I just can’t feel my damn feet.

“How are things going at the school?” I ask--Skuld mostly because I know she’s previously reached her peak of hating me.

“It’s a lot of work, but I think it’s good.” She tells me, eyes flicking over to Lea. “It’s weird because obviously we’ve got our strong suits, Ludor’s not a heavy hitter--”

“But his magic more than makes up for it.” I nod.

“Exactly.” Skuld’s eyes flash. “And I’m fast but…”

“You’re fast? Don’t sell yourself short.” I roll my eyes at her, she smirks a little, the type of smirk that tries to disguise an outright smile. 

“The fact of the matter is, it makes me want to be better, it makes me competitive with myself, I know my magic isn’t what it could be, I’d like to get better at that, having that kind of gaping hole in my training is…” She shakes her head. “It’s annoying. Especially when I have to watch Ludor and Lea teleport.” 

“I don’t get how they do it so freely, I always feel like I’m going to puke when I do it.” I wrinkle my nose.

“Eh, you get used to it.” Lea waves a hand and winks at me. We both pause a little, my face flushing, his losing color and then we look down at our food. It’s too easy, and I want to shake his shoulders and tell him that. It’s so easy to love him so deeply and freely, but after the way I tried just to possess him--like Luxu did to me--when he was so kind to me, is such a slap in the face, I can’t just demand he get over it. That’s not…

That’s not how I want to love anymore.

“So how many kids have promptly flipped the fuck out when they see you turn your Keyblade into chakrams?” I ask. He raises an eyebrow, but slowly a tiny smile creeps into place on his face. I can do this, we can do this.

“Do you remember that part in Verum Rex where Yozora doesn’t realize Stella can do magic until she saves him from the Gigas?” Lea asks, my face brightens right up.

“Yes! And Magia full on loses his shit cuz she’s better at magic than even he is?” I recall, Lea cracks up. “Dude, the way her hair was just like billowing back in the wind in that scene--”

“You would be focused on that. But that’s how they look at me.” Lea teases.

“Because she’s so pretty!” I insist.

“Right, how could I forget how much of a sucker you are for a pretty face?” I don’t know how serious he’s being, but I crack a smile and twirl my spaghetti around on my plate.

“I am.” I agree. “That’s why I’m considering getting a puppy. Maybe. Possibly, like they’re really cute, but they’re also usually like insanely sweet and loyal and affectionate, so maybe that’ll be a good way to channel my…” My love of things that are too cute for this world?

“You’re going to get a dog?” Xion raises her eyebrows.

“Awfully domestic of you, Rueks, how does Cid feel about that?” Lea asks, leaning across the table for just a second before snapping back upright. We can do this, we can talk to each other, we can enjoy being around each other, I can appreciate this without expecting more and he can be free without the weight of my expectations weighing him down.

“I said maybe. I still hang out with Del a lot and he’s basically the human equivalent of a really stupid dog.” I say. “I think Lucidia’s actually smarter than him and she puts her shoes on the wrong feet. But anyway, it’ll all just kind of depend on how my progress goes with…” I shimmy my hips and despite having absolutely zero feeling in my feet, I reach until I feel the pressure--maybe of Lea’s leg, maybe of the table leg, who knows--and shimmy my toes until they’re taut against the stocking and then pinch whatever--

“What the hell?” Lea’s eyes go wide, I laugh.

“Oh thank Twilight.” I reply. “I was so worried it was going to be the table I was pinching and that just wouldn’t have been the same.”

“Did you seriously just pinch me with your toes?” He asks me and I flush. “That is the rudest shit anyone has ever done.” But he’s grinning wildly now and my heart is sputtering in my poor chest and the longer we lock eyes, the more my heart stings and aches for more. But I can refrain from taking for five seconds. It’s the least I can do to allow myself the ability to enjoy this short lived, slippery high. So I do. 

“Well you can’t spell rude without Rueki.” I mumble.

“Now that is certainly the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard, which is remarkable for what typically comes out of your mouth.” Isa smirks at me, I turn to him, leaning forward.

“Did I tell you I got the paint on sale, dearest one? It was two for five at the fuck off store.” I flash him my two middle fingers, he scoffs.

“I stand corrected. That was the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.” He tells me.

“I find it precious that you keep mental note of all the dumb shit I’ve said to you.” I beam.

“Mental note? I have a scrapbook.” Isa leers.

“Omigod, that is precious, did you know I used to keep a journal filled with so much petty shit about you? That stupid fucking notebook you gave me when I ‘wasn’t’ a member of the Organization?” I ask, tacking on air quotes and all. Isa cracks the kind of smile he has to work very hard to bite back. “That’s what I wrote in there.”

“There’s no amount of me that is surprised by that. I must say, I’m happy that as your shoes got longer, you stopped throwing them as much.” He teases, and I laugh so hard my shoulders shake, my face hurts, my stomach muscles tense.

“Omigod, do you remember when I lost my shoes on the beach in Twilight Town?” I ask Lea, he smiles hugely, my heart pangs. 

“I remember when you and Isa beat the hell out of each other and I had to carry your ass to bed and you still tried to take off your shoes and throw them at him.” Lea replies.

“I remember when he hit you with a couch.” Roxas frowns. I contemplate trying to find his leg to pinch him with my toes. The boy can hold a grudge for sure and I think that might possibly be my fault.

“Do you remember the damn pajamas Xemnas came out wearing?” I ask and even he starts to grin. Xion giggles, pressing her fingers to her lips. Her eyes flick up to me ever so sweetly. 

“I remember when we had to talk Roxas and Rueki out of running from Organization XIII.” Xion replies.

“Right, it only took me what, like five years to figure out that running from my problems doesn’t work.” I shake my head.

“Have you learned that?” Skuld raises her eyebrows, I shrug.

“Well I really don’t have the stamina to outrun them anymore.” I grin, she shakes her head and laughs dryly. 

“Know what I remember the most about those days?” Roxas pipes up and we all shift to look at him. 

“Watching the sunset, eating ice cream.” Xion predicts and he flushes a little. 

“Yeah.” He admits and they smile just this tiny, private little smile with each other. “We should do that tonight, we’ve got all of us here.”

And I just think, great, wouldn’t that be so fun, two couples and me and the man I’m desperately in love with, my fucking soulmate who can barely handle the uber familiarity and disconnect of being around me.

“You guys go and have fun, I’ll tape off the kitchen and do the dishes.” I offer.

“Rueks, you don’t need to do that.” Lea says and I don’t know what he’s referring to by ‘do that’--do I not need to distance myself from him or do I not need to do the dishes?

“Besides, you haven’t had ice cream with us in forever.” Roxas gripes.

“Well then I’ll owe you ice cream, but I have a job to do tonight.” I tap him on the nose with the tip of my fork and he blinks at me like I’m the most offensive thing he’s ever seen. But it is effective. Everyone heads out, I turn some music on on my phone and get to work on taping off the kitchen. When that’s done, I bust out the roller and start painting, grabbing chairs and standing on countertops as needed until the first coat is done. When that’s done, I start on the dishes, watch the minutes go by and am just finishing up the second coat of the pale, egg cream yellow paint, when the others get back. I turn from where I’m rinsing the roller in the sink and Roxas, ever the cheerleader, bounds over to me and looks around, like painting a kitchen is the single most fantastic thing another human being could do.

“Yellow?” He asks.

“I thought it looked happy.” I decide.

“And here I was, certain you’d go with the dark red.” Isa presses his mouth into a line and looks around. “It certainly opens up the room.” 

“It looks great Rueks, thank you.” Lea tells me and I smile at him.

“Not a problem. Is there anything else you need? I don’t wanna overstay my welcome.” I admit.

“You mean you’re not staying over? There are plenty of bedrooms.” Roxas insists. Although being that I’m the one who bought the damn house, I’m quite aware of that.

“Kairi and Cid would miss me too much. Plus I’ve finally slept on that mattress enough times where it doesn’t feel stiff anymore, I like sleeping on it.” I roll my shoulders back.

“Well, you’re in the clear then. I’ll uh...keep you posted. I mean, you know, you’ll get half of whatever I sell this place for.” Lea reminds me, like that means a single thing. 

“Cool, right.” I nod, fishing my phone out of my pocket. “Then I’ll have Elrena come get me.” And with that, I call her. Her phone goes right to voicemail, I roll my eyes and try Emyd’s. The same holds true with his, which probably means they’re otherwise occupied so while I try not to think too much about the details on that--Elrena totally tops and I would not mind getting in on that, yikes I’m horny--I call up Ludor. His phone at least rings a few times, I sigh. 

“We could always open up a dark corridor for you.” Xion offers and I chew my lip.

“Hell, who knows, I might be able to.” I kind of laugh it off though cuz I remember seeing my heart and the darkness it lacked, and I know I used my dark materia to finish Luxu off. There’s no way I can still access a dark corridor, but I wave my hands like it’s kind of a joke only to stagger right back into the countertop when one opens up right in front of me. My pulse hammers in my temples, my throat tightens up, my skin sparks and crackles. “I uh...I didn’t know I could…” I trail off as a fist clenches around my heart. Does this mean...could he be… “I have to go see Ienzo, it was good seeing you guys.” But I don’t say a more proper goodbye than that as I rush out into the corridor. It spits me out straight in the lab, where Ienzo works. He almost falls out of his chair when he sees me and registers where I came from.

“Rueki, how did you--”

“Hook up my heart!” I beg. “Please!” 

He doesn’t waste a single second, he straps me up and projects my heart onto the computer, which I lean over and look at and…

And my Station of Awakening is reforming so nicely. The gap between Lea and I is now filled with some clear stained glass, waiting to be etched into. The edges don’t look half as tattered, but there’s...there’s something… missing. 

There are no shadows. There is no trace of the empathy link reforming. There is no glimpse of Vanitas anywhere in my heart, save for the single Unversed symbol and that’s when it strikes me.

He didn't just die for all of the mistakes we made, he didn’t just die to white out the problems I created for the entire realm. In his death, he gave me everything he had. He gave up his body to fill the world’s heart with darkness, he gave up his body to ensure certain events happened in the past and…

He gave up the power he had to make sure I had enough left over to finish things on my end. That’s why that damn symbol is dangling from my Keyblade, is on my Station of Awakening, that’s why I can open a dark corridor, and I bet if I concentrated, I could still summon Nobodies and probably Unversed as well.

Someone whose connection to me was once so overwhelming it threatened to devour me is now so absent, I drown in the loss. It leaves me light headed, like I’m not getting enough oxygen. It is as though someone digs a knife through my heart until all that is left is its very shell. My head starts to throb, my face gets hot, tears start to pour down my cheeks. I grind the heels of my hands into my eyes and let my head fall. Ienzo sets a hand on my shoulder, I look up at him.

“I keep thinking I’m going to be able to bring him back.” I whisper. 

“I understand.” He tells me, brows coming together, smile strained. “With how death seems to lack permanence, I wonder about my parents rather frequently. And Ansem…” He chews his lower lip.

“I keep holding my breath, like if I just wait it out, things will be different, like they were with Kairi.” I explain.

“Of course, you’re a scientist at your core. Reason says the people in your life don’t stay dead.” He agrees. And it’s validating as hell. But it makes me feel so dumb. 

“I fucking hate grieving people for them to come back in the end, but what if I don’t grieve him and he can’t come back because of me?” I ask.

“You’re not that superstitious.” He tries. My head falls again.

“I just feel like I’m losing my mind sometimes.” I admit.

“Do you want to talk?” He asks. “Or would you rather I leave you be?”

“You know, I really don’t know.” I look back up at Ienzo. The other orphan, what different lives we’ve had, what different upbringings, what different journeys and personalities. “What do I do when I don’t know what I’m supposed to be anymore?”

I don’t expect him to know the answer, and right away I mistake his thoughtful look for indecision, for discomfort. But then Ienzo takes my metal hand in both of his, cupping it gently. And he smiles.

“When I didn’t know whether to be a child or an adult, a little girl brought me ice cream.” He tells me. “I think that would be a good start.”

My heart throbs, but it doesn’t hurt.

“Yeah, yeah, I owe you.” I recall. “Do you um...I mean does anyone ask you about… This doesn’t just have to be about me. If you want, we could talk about your parents.” I squeeze his hand, his face softens until suddenly I’m looking at that little boy who had the hardest time deciphering Even’s miserable research notes.

“Yes, yes, I think I would like that a lot.”

\--  
It’s dark outside before I get home, Kairi’s in our bed reading some sappy romance novel with a shirtless pirate on the cover of it.

“You’re reading smut and you can’t even be bothered to make a grab for Sora’s ass?” I ask. She flashes me her middle finger, though I see her turn the same color as her hair.

“You were out late, I kind of thought you and Axel were...you know.” She wrinkles her nose. I laugh.

“I think that ship has sunk.” I admit, taking a seat on the bed. She cocks her head to the side and sets her book down.

“Is that why you were crying?” She asks. I laugh and shake my head, goddamn mascara smeared down my cheeks.

“No, I was crying cuz I opened a dark corridor…” I trail off. “And I thought that meant that maybe Vanitas had stuck around some edge of my heart and I could...maybe bring him back. Um, but it turns out, I think he passed his powers onto me...like gave me the last of his strength so that I could kill Luxu.” Kairi leans right over and squeezes my hand. “Am I dumb for having hope?” 

She wraps her arms around me fully.

“Never.” She promises me.

“Even without all that light in your heart you still believe that?” I ask. 

“Especially without it. Sometimes hope is all you have.” She says, like I’m not distinctly aware of this.

“It’s a pretty shit foundation.” I murmur.

“Look if there’s anything I learned when you died...it’s that I could’ve ended up in your place, in your shoes. But I did hope, Rueki. Even when all that time came and went, I hoped for you and the world kept moving and it was so much to deal with, watching the whole world continue living when I just felt like dying too. But it does. And by time I stood up, I was thankful for that foundation of hope. It made it so I didn’t have to go so far to catch up when I finally could stand. You cared about someone. It’s never wrong or dumb to grasp for hope every chance you get. That’s why I’m kind of shocked you’re so..nonchalant about Axel.”

“He deserves to be happy, Kai.” I try.

“You used to make him so happy.” She reminds me.

“Kai, I’m a minefield. It’s okay if Lea doesn’t want to walk through me anymore.” I insist.

“You’re getting better though. You’re getting help, you’re trying so hard to heal.” She pats my cheek as we part.

“Yeah, but...not that. I’m not trying to change that. I don’t...I don’t wanna feel dead inside like I did when you died or when I lived with Del and Amaya. I like being the storm, the explosion. It’s who I am at my core. It’s the way I feel alive, everyone’s always been right about that. I’m just trying to find a way to channel that right.” Because I don’t want to get rid of who I am so entirely anymore, I don’t to cut out the girl I used to be for the woman I’m becoming. When hope is too shaky of a foundation, I have her, the absolute disaster who made it through all of her worst days so far. For her I am always eternally thankful. For her I hold the ground steady. “We loved each other for who we were, really deeply. I don’t want to start all over again and try to be someone I’m not. If he’s outgrown me, that’s my fault for propelling him so far forward and not even trying to catch up.”

Her hands slide down into mine, she squeezes them, fingers brushing curiously across my metal hand.

“You know, I don’t have a really hefty workload tomorrow. We’ve got almost everything set up, so if my day starts a little late, that’s not a big deal.” She tells me.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

“Stupid girly movies, painting nails, wine and nachos.” She nibbles her lips. I laugh.

“Okay, yes, totally. I mean I can’t get drunk, but I think I like the taste of wine, so we can drink it.” I offer. Her eyes light up.

“For real?” She asks.

“Yeah, it sounds like fun.” I nod. She touches a hand to her heart.

“You’re right, this is you. And it’s really good to have you back, Rueki.”


	67. Chapter 67

LXVII.

The next morning, I wake with cinder blocks on my chest and stinging eyes. The nightmares aren’t magically cured, but what’s weirder than having them is not. The absence gives my mind time to curl around the emptiness, the loneliness, the isolation. I sleep deeper and sounder but I won’t pretend I don’t miss the pain now that it’s absent. 

I look down at my legs, which are twisted between Kairi’s and focus especially on my toes. On the bright green she has painted my toenails. I focus on them, lifting up the blankets so I can watch them and visualize myself wiggling them, visualize myself succeeding. I try, I fail, I huff, looking at the ceiling with my eyebrows raised into my hairline. 

If progress were linear, no one would ever quit. But I still want to put a fist into the wall. This is what I get, I guess, for over exerting myself yesterday. 

I want so badly to drown in the downward spiral but Kairi presses her warm cheek into my shoulder and I’m able to seperate the thoughts. I have therapy this morning. I don’t need to drown in my feelings--failings, fuck--when there’s someone I’m paying to unravel them. Right now, my brain is a massive ball of knotted yarn, that’s all. It’s not completely broken.

I reach across Kairi, scooping up my phone, looking at the time. I still have plenty before my session, I’m torn between playing a game on my phone to waste time and keep me focused, or cozying back up and falling asleep with Kairi. It is like that, mid debate, that my phone buzzes in my hand.

Lea: Hey

_Hello, you looked hot as hell last night and dominate all of my dirty thoughts, but like I totally respect your autonomy to cut my toxic ass off lmao XD._

‘Good morning’.

Lea: How’d you sleep?

_Better in your arms._

‘Weird. No nightmares.’

Lea: That a new thing?

‘Sometimes. What’s up?’ Because he hasn’t leisurely texted me since...well since our marriage was amicable, to be honest. He’s probably going to ask me for a divorce, I tell myself. To come over and sign the paperwork and set him free--because he’s gorgeous and warm and of course he ‘s ready to move on. Or maybe the house already sold somehow or something and he’s doing that Lea thing where he--

It's been like ten hours since I left his house, it didn’t sell, I should maybe stop losing my mind.

Lea: You seemed scared when you left last night, I’m just making sure you’re alright.

Yeah, and that simultaneously managed to win over my heart, you raging douche. How loud do I have to scream at him that I’m sold before he stops romancing the hell out of me, even when he thinks he isn’t?

‘Yeah, I was, but I’m good now. Kai and Ienzo helped me sort some things out. Sorry I didn’t give a real goodbye, I thought it was a time sensitive thing :/’

Lea: Np, but I’ve got a favor to ask you

Anything, everything. 

‘Sure, whats up?’

Lea: You free at all today? There’s an open house tomorrow, Roxas and Xion have exams and Isa and Skuld have date night tonight. 

‘Totally, I’ve got therapy in an hour and a half, but after that I could swing up and take care of it so you don’t need to fuss with it when you’re off work’

Lea: C’mon, you don’t have to do that. Just stop by around 5, I’ll grab us some takeout and then we’ll set up the place.

I type in ‘don’t go buying me dinner unless you want me to owe you favors ;)’, but immediately delete it. Yeah, right. 

‘Okay, sure. If you need anything in the meantime, lemme know’

He likes my message and another one pings on my screen.

Riku: Ready to run?

‘You’re the devil’

Riku: Be over in 5 ;)

I stifle a groan so not to wake Kairi, but lean over her to grab two syringes of Elixir. I inject one into one thigh and one into the other and try curling my toes again, this time with instant success. And while nothing in the world will probably get me feeling them again, Riku, Lea, even Kairi, they all got me out of bed, changing into leggings and a sports bra. The house is still quiet this early in the morning, but by time I pull my hair into a tiny nub of a ponytail and put some shoes on, Riku is waiting outside as I open the door.

“Kairi not up?” He asks me, not like she’d run with us anyway, but typically she’d meet up with Sora and walk with him to the school, instead Sora just waves at me and I try not to see Vanitas in his bone structure, because they are so remarkably different, and on the outside looking in, there’s a joke to make to Kairi about me having already gotten closer to playing grab ass with Sora than she has.

“No, we had a girls night last night.” I admit.

“Ooh, what’d you do?” Sora asks, probably just excited to hear the epic story of Kairi’s life.

“Paint nails, watch movies, eat junk food and drink wine.” I declare proudly and Sora nods like he’s super happy for us and he really is too good for this world. I smile.

“I would’ve painted your nails for you guys.” He shrugs and my heart turns to absolute mush. He sure isn’t Vanitas.

“Are you gonna come for a run with us?” Riku shoots him a look and Sora laughs awkwardly.

“Ummm...noooo…” He says, I laugh. “I wanted to put up decorations at the school, check out what I made.” He pulls out some type of garland that is laced with paper paopu fruits, and they actually look really good.

“That is precious.” I put a hand on my heart.

“We wanted to do something as a tribute to fallen Keybearers. Aqua and Terra don’t have something like that, neither do Lea, Skuld and Ludor. But the history of having a Keyblade isn’t always easy. I think it’s important to establish this and remind our students that’s why the choices we make now are so detrimental--so we don’t make the same mistakes twice.” Riku explains to me.

“We kinda thought a less sad way to do that would be memorializing anyone we’ve lost. You know Master Eraqus, Master Ava...” Sora begins. “Ven…”

“I think that’s awesome.” I say, quickly, knowing full well what he’s getting at.

“We wanted to know if you wanted to be a part of that, to pay tribute to Vanitas in some way.” Riku offers.

“How would Aqua feel about me contributing to one of these schools?” I lift an eyebrow.

“This is my choice, not Aqua’s.” Riku says flatly, my grin spreads.

“Then yes. Yes I want to. Can I pay tribute to Lauriam and his sister too?” I ask.

“More than okay.” Riku pats me on the shoulder. “You should go put up your decorations, or you’re running with us.” Riku tells Sora, who promptly takes off into a sprint. Riku and I burst out laughing and when we’re done, we head out for a jog. 

\--

There’s something about sweat and therapy that gets me motivated, I think the fact that I haven’t had to inject additional Elixir hasn’t hurt, but after showering and putting real clothes on at home--to find both Cid and Kairi gone for the day-- I head up to the castle and walk straight into the lab like I own the place.

“Oh, you.” Even makes a face.

“Would you prefer this one or Elrena?” Aeleus asks, smirking a little at me, I smile back.

“One of these days I’m going to stay dead and you’re going to miss me terribly. Where’s Del?” I ask.

“King Delphinius.” Even corrects, I roll my eyes.

“Would you like a graphic depiction about how he puked into the river when he got drunk when we were like thirteen? He’s always going to be Del to me.” I set a hand on my hip.

“The king is in the library, I believe.” Aeleus answers. 

“Thanks.” I reply and head toward the library, finally starting to familiarize myself with the hallways. Kind of. I get lost once before choosing the right door and catching Del sprawled out across a massive plush chair.

“You ever been to a place called Midgar?” Del asks without even looking up from the notes he reads.

“Couple times.”

“You wanna maybe…” He drawls on the word. “Accept the job I offered you and come along with me? Their advancements in technology could really be what this place needs to supercharge their defense system.”

“Sure.” I say and Del finally looks up, wide eyed like a doll, blinking at me. I see Lucidia in his face.

“For real?” He asks, like he’s some tiny mouse, waiting for the big bad cat to pull the cheese away from him.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here, that’s what I want.” I nod.

“No way.” He leaps off the chair, bounds over and tackles me in a hug, straight up lifting me off my feet.

“When did you get stronger?” I swat at his arms until he puts me down.

“About the same time you got weaker.” He grins lopsidedly, I flip him off. 

“Okay, ass clown. Here’s the thing. I want to work with you. But I am weaker. I have a lot of training to do and I know you’re probably going to, irritatingly enough, be the best king ever and probably nothing is going to happen to you. But let’s avoid some high stress situations for the time being, yeah?” I demand. “At least until I feel like...better about all of this.” I gesture toward my legs.

“What’s got you scared?” His brow furrows, it’s almost adorable how idealistic Del is.

“The fact that I woke up this morning and had to give myself Elixir, the fact that I’m not as quick as I used to be, that I’m still gunshy as hell about alchemy. I’m gonna build that all up...I um… I want to.” I admit, chewing my lips. Del beams at me.

“Okay, so unclear, is Midgar out of the question then?” He asks and I cackle.

“No, Midgar’s good, I’ve seen what their president has to offer as far as defenses.” I reply.

“Are they...weak…?” Del blinks.

“One of them is weak to me.” I smirk. He shakes his head.

“Well too bad your charm wore off when you cut your hair. Points for not having your bangs in your face though.” He grins.

“Omigod, go like...crawl in a swamp or something, weirdo.” I punch him in the arm, he buckles a little and makes a face.

“You’re right, you’re still weak, you should probably go train...asshole.”

\--

I’m not having a whole ass panic attack outside the door of a house in my name. I don’t almost reopen a dark corridor and turn around, I sure don’t come up with a thousand perfect, convincing things to say to Lea, and then forget them all when he answers the door.

“I brought wine!” I announce stupidly, jutting the bottle forward. It is a really good thing we never went through the courting phase, apparently I’m really bad at it, I guess it’s a good thing I’m easy.

“Thanks…” He blinks, grabbing the bottle. “You know you could’ve just come on in.” 

“Yeah, but you remember how crazy it used to drive me when people would just dark corridor right on in, manners matter.” I remind him.

“Says Rude Rueki.” He chuckles, shakes his head then steps aside. “I got a bunch of stuff, so just, make yourself a plate.” He informs me as he waves a hand over at the coffee table in the living room, where what seems like a thousand containers of carry out are stacked.

“How many of those are dessert?” I lift a brow.

“Guilty as charged.” He winks and I almost plant my face in the carpet as a response. It’s not fair that he’s so perfect, just existing is distracting.

We sit down in front of the coffee table, backs to the couch, me with my legs tucked beneath me as I scoop different things out onto my plate. Lea pours a glass of wine and extends it to me.

“You didn’t need to get this.” He tells me. “I know you don’t get anything out of it.”

“But you do and you like this kind and you bought me food.” I remind him. “Plus I don’t mind the taste.”

“Still leaning on equivalence?” He teases and I chew on my lip.

“No...I mean… I don’t know… I don’t think the things I’ve done can ever be leveled out, but despite that, there are people that love me and see past them. I think equivalence is a really good concept, but I really don’t think it applies perfectly to life.” I admit. He makes a face like he’s thinking then takes a massive bite of something on his plate. “How’s the school going?” I ask.

“Really good, actually.” He tells me. “It’s like exactly what I want, and the fact that we’re working with kids mostly is like...remember when Roxas and Xion joined the Organization?” He asks.

“And you took them under you wing like a good mama duck?” I take a bite.

“Cuz I didn’t want them to deal with all of the shit I did. And I can do that on a larger scale now.” He tells me. “And since Sora, Riku and Kairi have nearly finalized things, we’ve got this sorting thing we want to do with perspectives. Instead of just having whoever scouts them in the realm teach them, here, check this out.” Lea juts some paperwork out from the rack beneath the table and hands it over to me. I look at them while I eat, and it appears to be a short personality test.

‘Which of these values directly resonates with your own  
A. Honor  
B. Loyalty  
C. Adaptability

How would you best describe your problem solving techniques  
A. I prefer to follow laid out guidelines and previous knowledge to solve a problem  
B. I prefer to consult others and follow my instincts to solve problems  
C. I prefer to use cunning and don’t mind charting new territory to solve problems

What do you hope to gain in your education as a Keybearer  
A. I hope to become to gain great knowledge and use it to enforce the law of the realm  
B. I hope to become a strong defender and use my skills to keep the peace in the realm  
C. I hope to broaden the range of my skills and want to face the most difficult challenges this realm has to offer

Which of these things do you want most to protect  
A. Peace and order  
B. Friends and family  
C. Freedom and autonomy’

“Obviously there are some kinks to work out, but mostly ‘a’ will send them to Aqua and Terra, mostly ‘b’ will send them to Sora, Riku and Kairi and mostly ‘c’ will send them to Ludor, Skuld and I.” He explains to me.

“I think that’s good, I like it.” I tell him and hand the papers back. “I like that there’s not exactly a right answer, I think that’ll be good for all of us if we stop thinking there is.” 

“Well, that you did a good job of, Rueks. You’re a catalyst for change and we sure are uprooting the old ways after everything you laid out.” He tells me.

“I still don’t think that’s a bad thing.” I admit.

“No right answer to that one either, huh?” He asks, taking a drink of wine. “So what had you so spooked last night?”

I flush. I don’t want to tell him, I want to lie, but I think what if he realizes I’m lying and it’s off putting and he decides we can’t have a relationship like this, but what if he hates the truth so much he walks out the door again on me?

Honestly, what the fuck does it matter? If he’s made up his mind, he’s made up his mind and I actually have made mine up. Regardless of what he chooses, I am going to live. 

Maybe all along it’s been my story after all.

“Obviously we shouldn’t be able to open up dark corridors… the only reason I started to be able to again was because I got some type of dark magic sphere from Midgar, and with it I could channel my own darkness. But I used that in the transmutation to make myself strong enough to kill Luxu, I shouldn’t have access to that kind of dark magic anymore. But for whatever reason I do and… when Vanitas sacrificed himself to the world’s heart, he promised me that it wouldn’t kill him. I realized right after that he lied to stop me from stopping him, um...but he’s the only one who I was connected to that could access my heart in return. He was the only one that empathy link worked both ways with, I summoned those Nobodies because he shuttled his darkness through me and he told Luxu that as long as there was a dark corner in my heart, he’d be able to access it. There wasn’t one when I first woke up, but when I summoned a dark corridor I thought maybe...and I thought maybe that meant I could bring him back.” The confession comes spilling out and my flesh hand shakes. My voice becomes thick and heavy with threatening tears but I take a breath and focus on the way the oxygen fills my chest, I focus on the opaque pale yellow of the kitchen and the taste of the food in the bite I take. “I can’t though. He gave me the remnants of his powers, that’s all.” I smooth one hand across my thigh, not feeling any of the attempt at self comfort. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to hear about that.”

“I do, actually.” He tells me and I look up, almost stunned under the intensity of his eyes. “Were you in love with him?”

“No, it wasn’t like that, he was my friend.” I assure Lea, who lifts an eyebrow.

“So he just filled the time after you broke up with Xigbar?” He asks and I flush. “I’m trying to understand, Rueks.”

“Vanitas went through a lot. A lot that I only knew cuz I lived inside his brain, a lot that he didn’t want anyone to know. Xehanort...Xehanort made him hurt himself, kept him up without sleep, without food, in a constant state of pain every second he was alive. I’m not saying he was a ray of sunshine, but people deserve to feel loved. And I wasn’t in love with him, but I did love him the way you love someone who connects with you so deeply on all the things you think no one should ever understand. All of the manipulation, the games played by old men with plans, he got that. And I understood what it felt like to be on the outside looking in, wanting something so bad but knowing I’d have to tear myself apart to get it. I just wanted him to for once, feel like he could have that with someone, and know he deserves it. And I wanted to feel like I could choose someone that wasn’t my soulmate or my heart’s other half.” I explain, looking at my food with a twisted mouth.

“I felt you.” He tells me and I look at him with an eyebrow raised. “Your soul. In Radiant Garden.”

“That’s funny, that’s where I felt yours.” I admit. “When I was searching for you after we came back when we died as Nobodies.” 

“Do you feel it often? Like… the yearning, like you’re incomplete, like you’re missing something, like you need my soul or you’re going to...just absolutely combust?” He asks, I bite my lip.

“Come on, don’t do that, don’t let me guilt trip you.” I plead.

“So yes?” He asks, I laugh, dryly.

“Literally all the time.” I murmur. “But please, don’t do that to yourself, don’t make yourself a martyr. Yeah, I was spooked last night, but I figured it out, just like I’ll figure my life out. I got ice cream with Ienzo, I watched movies and talked with Kairi, I ran with Riku, I went to therapy, I laid down plans for a future job with Del. Don’t...don’t make choices cuz our souls are doing dumb, stupid things, your life is yours and I can’t take that from you anymore than you can take mine from me.”

“I'm sorry.” He says, I don't know what for, the way I feel, the choices he's making, every single thing in the realm, but I do know one thing.

“It's okay. Everything's okay.”

“What kind of job did you line up with Del?” He asks, brow coming together. I smile, finally.

“I’m gonna be his bodyguard.” I say.

“After all that effort spent not fighting, you’re going right back into the frontlines?” He asks me. 

“I don’t think either of us should pretend that I’m the type to sit these things out. Last time I tried to do that I basically broke the realm.” I say.

“You fixed it in the end.” He reminds me.

“Cuz I wanted to protect my friends. And I think I’m always going to want to do that. Like you don’t want kids to be raised in abusive situations, I want to protect my friends from them. Del’s giving me the chance to do that for money.” I smirk.

“Well, I wish you luck, Rueks.” He raises his wine glass my heart hurts a little, I cheers him and he drinks while I look down into my glass. 

“I really do mean what I sent you by the way. And like we don’t need to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to, but what I did to you was literally the same thing Luxu did to me. So I’m sorry, no one deserves that.” I say. “Um, do you have any idea what you wanna do? Like where you wanna move to?”

“There’s a little place on the beach I’ve been eyeballing. Still in Twilight Town, still close to the school, just smaller.” He says. “This place just feels a lot too big.” 

“Yeah, guess I didn’t realize. It was one thing when everyone was here all the time.” I say, and think that this was the hub for wartime. And maybe peace time isn’t permanent but maybe that fear doesn’t swirl around the safest spaces in my heart anymore when things go wrong and that makes a difference.

“Did you ever end up listening to the voicemail I left you?” He asks me. It takes me a second to remember what he’s talking about.

“Um no, when you told me not to listen to it, I deleted it.” I admit.

“Really?” He asks.

“Well you asked me to.” I reply.

“And you’re not exactly the poster child for obedience.” He reminds me, I laugh softly. 

“I’m gonna level with you, the first month or so worth of being back was brutal. As a form of self punishment, I deleted your message.” I explain. “But like I don’t want to be that asshole that doesn’t respect someone’s wishes, you know? It doesn’t feel good to be on the other end of things.”

“Well, when I sent it, it was when Namine told us that she was Ava. And she told us all of the ways she twisted and manipulated you, like you were ammunition to use against Xigbar. And it made me fucking sick that I completely turned my back to you, when everything you did, physically, verbally, was a very obvious cry for my help. I um...there’s blame to share in all of this, Rueks. We didn’t talk to each other, we used the fact that we knew each other well as an excuse to make judgements, and we both assumed the worst.” He tells me. My breath catches a little bit in my throat. We’re talking about this, we’re really talking about this.

“I’m sorry we lost friends because of me too, I never would have guessed--”

Lea puts his hand up and shakes his head before setting his wine glass down. I mimic the movement and place my hands in my lap. 

“It’s pretty clear that that’s not the direction you wanted things to go. And that they wouldn’t have gone that way if you actually had the say in that day I thought you did.” Lea tells me. 

“He kept saying that no one would get hurt.” I murmur. Then I shake my head and shake away the traces of the Master of Masters. “I was naive. You’re right, there’s plenty of blame to share.” 

“It’s not all yours.” He assures me and lifts up my prosthetic hand and my heart in combination and mayday, mayday, I’m about to spontaneously combust. “This is cool.” He opens up the palm of my prosthetic into his hand and yep, I’m going to put my face into the coffee table, that’s going to happen. “It’s lighter than I thought it would be.”

“It’s fancy too, I won’t rust.” And it isn’t lost on me that the man I left him for responded with ‘this better not crush my dick’, and not ‘this is cool’. “It’s supposed to be able to take more damage than my real body can.”

“Well that seems to stand up.” He nods, eyes flicking to my legs. “You have feeling in it at all?” 

“No. But I needed the nerves to be healthy to attach it. Which is why I haven’t gone out and bought myself a new pair of legs.” I explain.

“Is that the problem? Nerve damage?” He asks. “I was worried that Xigbar stabbing you all the way through would leave you paralyzed.” He was worried. For me.

“And muscle damage. That, I can repair you know, by trying to rebuild, which I’ve been working hard on. But yeah, all that alchemy I did to my body, I have to live with the consequences of. The human body isn’t supposed to move the way mine did.” I explain. 

“But you can’t feel anything at all?” He asks.

“Pressure, sometimes. But not really.” I say, but his eyes are on my legs and my eyes are on his lips and I tell myself it isn’t what I think, it’s not what I think is happening at all, but then he brushes his fingers across my thighs and my heart all but stops.

“Can I?” He asks, I don’t even ask what.

“Yes.” I breathe, flames ignite on my skin, brushing across the gap between my shorts and my stockings. “Oh!” I choke, grabbing a fistful of the couch behind us.

“You okay?” He asks.

“Yeah, it was just...it’s not what it used to feel like. It just felt kinda warm for a second. I didn’t realize I wasn’t feeling temperature before but I um...I kind of can now.” I realize as my heart tries to come down. “It felt good.” And I didnt think anything would ever again.

“Why’d you choose yellow paint, Rueks?” He asks. Oh fuck.

“Dude, no.” I shake my head. “It’s stupid.”

“I don’t care, I wanna know.” He tells me and I know he does but that’s why I don’t want to tell him, because all the stars are lining up against the odds, the world is shifting, all signs are pointing toward something I’m too scared to hope for and I don’t want my big dumb mouth to ruin it. “I thought you were gonna pick the red paint. But you didn’t and you cut the red out of your hair.”

“I just keep thinking that whether red light travels the furthest or the fastest, it’s too much for any one person, any relationship, any family, anything to have to travel. And I expected you to do that, be that for me, and I can’t change my past, but I can change the future and I just…yellow light seemed like a good midpoint. I wanted whoever got this house to have that be their future. I want that to be my future.” I sound somehow, implausibly dumber after saying that out loud, Lea looks at me with his lips parted, probably like I am the single dumbest creature in the entire universe. The silence starts to stress me out, so I open my mouth to spit out something that might correct the sheer idiocy that I spewed, but as I go to speak, massive, scalding hands cup my face and press the back of my head into the couch. Plush lips burn into mine, I struggle to catch my breath and for the first time in years, I breathe anew, gasping and sighing simultaneously into Lea’s mouth. He kisses me hard, he kisses me deep, his fingers thread into my hair, mine forget what to do for far too long until one of his hands slide out of my hair and grab my waist, pressing my body against his. I force my legs open so that he can kneel between them and then link my arms around his neck, holding him close to me as though he may disappear if I don’t. 

We part, gasping, heated breath passing between the two of us in a dizzying exchange. I want to jump onto him, beneath his skin, under his clothes, I want to consume him, I want everything he has and then more and I want it right the hell now, my entire body is a string of desperate nerve endings. I feel his heart hammering in his chest, just as hard as mine. He’ll let me, I realize, he’ll let me consume him like a woman starving and that stills me.

“Do you…” He breathes, sounding exactly how I feel. “Do you wanna stay together?”

“Yes.” I sigh.

“Thank Twilight.” He dives down on me again, working my legs around his waist, pressing me into the couch with hungry hands on my waist. I whine into his lips, he touches my stomach, he’s going to put his hand inside my shirt, he’s going to touch me, I’m going to implode and--

“Wait.” I pull back, shaking my head, taking his face tenderly in his hands as he tries to break too far away from me. “Could we...take it slow?”

My words hang in the air, but as I try to center myself and diffuse the anxiety that wants to build in my chest, Lea’s nose bumps mine, his lips brush against mine. Together, we unwind all that I am.

“Yeah.” He agrees. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He kisses me softly in the sweetest of ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Arsonist's Lullaby- Hozier (R)  
2\. Diary Of Jane- Breaking Benjamin (X)  
3\. Far Too Young To Die- Panic! At The Disco (L)  
4\. Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)- Florence + The Machine (R)  
5\. Hey, You Got Drugs- Tove Lo (R)  
6\. For No One - The Beatles (X)  
7\. Rewrite- Darling Thieves (R)  
8\. Three Cheers For Five Years- Mayday Parade (L)  
9\. Angels On The Moon- Thriving Ivory (R)  
10\. Vindicated- Dashboard Confessional (R)  
11\. Never Really Over- Katy Perry (L)  
12\. Peace- Taylor Swift (R)


	68. Chapter 68

Epilogue:

I wake up with Kairi fitted between my arms. She sleeps soundly despite the sun streaming in through the cracks in the blinds of the bedroom we share in Cid’s house. My phone buzzes on the nightstand. She hums softly, but presses her face further into the pillow. For a moment, I’m entirely focused on the flutter of her lashes against her cheekbones. But I reach across her and grab my phone off the nightstand when I see the sheer amount of texts waiting for me on the screen.

I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a year today since coming back to life.

Reno: Yo, sweetness, when are you and the hubby getting a drink with us?

I smirk at the message but swipe it away.

Roxas: We still on for dinner tonight?

I lick my lips and type out a reply.

‘Bistro at 6’ I attach a thumbs up emoji. ‘Xion joining us?’

I go into my messages and see one from Riku.

Riku: Running late, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who was up on the phone all night with Kai. Be over by 8

‘You think those two will ever pull the damn trigger?’

Riku, unlike Roxas, responds immediately, probably since Sora is the one who usually pilots the Gummi Ship they fly from here to the Destiny Islands every day.

Riku: They will be married with two kids and still be convinced that one only likes the other as ‘friends’. 

Riku might be my favorite human alive, or at least the only one more fed up than I am about the fact that my now twenty year old best friend magically turns into a twelve year old who will get teased if she admits she has a crush on the boy who very obviously is obsessed with her. 

Amaya: I’m seeing Aerith again tonight <3

I'm not sure what I'm really supposed to say to that so I send back a couple heart emojis, biting back my big, dumb smile. The warm rush of the reminder that I'm capable of foraging a connection that isn't made to break is the kind of reassurance that never gets old. And knowing that Aerith and Amaya are a perfect match for each makes me all the more satisfied that I set the two up. 

And then, I answer the text that I am, undoubtedly the most excited for. 

Lea: Good morning.

A picture of Lea’s sleepy, half awake face pressed into the pillow in his bed is attached. My heart dances.

I snap a picture of me in my bed, messy and half awake, just like him.

‘Good morning’

Lea: Any nightmares?

‘Not last night.’

And such is our routine every morning that I don’t stay the night at his place. I would say my chest swims with butterflies, but it feels a lot more like it is embraced by something more secure and less flighty and I think that has a lot to do with the settled, sweet soul we share. 

Lea: What’s on the agenda for the day?

‘Idk, I’m pretty sure we’re going to Midgar again. Del seems to thinkPresident Shinra is a useful douche.’

Lea: What about you?

‘I trust Del. What’s your day look like?’

Lea: Magic studies today :)

I don’t need to ask to know how excited he is for that. 

‘Yay!’ I drum my fingers over the phone case and daydream for a moment that I’m in his bed, that we’re propped up on our sides, face to face, chest to chest. I imagine the way the light of the early morning sun flits through his hair, making it truly look on fire. I imagine a cup of coffee with him in the morning, but I think that this is nice too. This gives us control, this gives us comfort, this is the best way either of us could think to make sure we weren’t rushing headlong into something that would unravel just as quick as before. But nine months in and I think we’ve started to trust not just each other but the situation. No, I don’t think, I know. Because that’s a sentiment we’ve expressed in quiet voices, cuddled up at night in his bed. The security of a love that used to feel on the verge of rushing through our fingers, somehow is even more deeply fulfilling then the manic, magic, fly by your seat passion that we used to chase. This feels real. And the clear gaps between Lea and I in my Station of Awakening have filled to show me that it is not only in my head. 

Lea: You are coming over tonight, right?

‘Definitely! I’m having dinner with Roxas, but I’ll be over right after. Don’t tell anyone, but I miss you already :P’

Lea: Shhh I miss you too

Lea: I can’t wait to see you, but Skuld says I have to ‘start working’ now. Bleh.

‘Gross! Tell her and Ludor I say hi!’

Lea: I will, you tell Del and everyone I say hi. I love you

‘Love you too, handsome’

I set my phone down and as I do, the glistening of my wedding ring on my flesh hand, in the early morning light, warms me from head to toe.

I climb over Kairi, I strap on my external skeleton and change into my running clothes, checking the time in the kitchen as I depart the room. Cid is awake, pouring himself a cup of coffee, and I have time.

“Huh, I thought you were over at Lea’s last night.” Is his greeting to me as he extends me the mug he was pouring and pours one for myself. I smile, knowing that with Cid there is no thanks needed, at least not verbally. A year worth of not giving him a constant heart attack is a lot more tangible of a ‘thanks’ to him.

“Why’s that?” I ask and he chuckles, taking a sip of scalding hot coffee.

“Cuz you were quiet last night. You two keep the whole world up until the crack of dawn, giggling.” He teases, I laugh.

“I was quiet because she ditched me to talk to Sora all night.” I say. “I am going to Lea’s tonight though, so I’ll spare you the headache another night.”

“You ever gonna move in together?” Cid asks and I shrug.

“Maybe. I’d love to, but it doesn’t bother me.” I admit. “You know, no one can say we’re living in sin.”

“No, you’re doing the opposite, but you know how nosey your mom is, she’ll get on my ass if I don’t have juicy updates for her. I’m pretty sure she thinks you’re some kinda teenager, hiding things from her.” Cid explains, I smirk as I blow into my coffee and take a sip.

“You’ve gotta tell that woman to stop asking you to do shady snooping, my life really just isn’t all that exciting anymore and I like it that way.” 

“You tell her, we’re getting breakfast this weekend.” Cid says, I don’t know whether I’m happier for him, me or my mom that this is an option.

“Cool, I’ll be there.” I nod, but I look out the window and see a Gummi Ship pulling up in the town square. “I’ve gotta go though, you know how Riku gets when I’m late.” I roll my eyes, Cid chuckles and ruffles my hair like I’m some kind of adorable scamp.

“Yeah, yeah.” He replies. “Have fun.”

“Not too much.” I wink and head out the door to where Riku is waiting for me, arms folded to his chest.

We run from one edge of town and back, I don’t need Elixir as we finish up, I haven’t in months.

\--

As expected, Del needs to go to Midgar today, and as usual, we head through a dark corridor, mostly because it doesn’t tax me to summon one and with the magical-- Princess of Heart-- light in his chest, he’s one of the few people I know who doesn’t feel weak and nauseous after traveling through one.

Del and I appear just outside of the Shinra building and are looked past entirely, familiar enough with the newly rebuilding company to not draw attention on our way to the President’s office. We make our way down the hall, from the elevator, to President Shinra’s office, where two men with crossed arms are waiting outside the door. I grin wickedly at one of them, mostly because he’s already smirking at me. 

“You bums give Tseng the day off?” I ask.

“A pleasure, as always, Rueki, your highness.” Rude nods, I look to Del with an eyebrow lifted.

“You know, you could follow his example. I like ‘your highness’.” Del informs me smugly.

“Get bent.” Is my response.

“Boss is just finishing up a meeting. You know what’s a pain in the ass? Reubuilding the damn world after a buncha assholes with mommy issues come in and destroy the place.” Reno rolls his eyes. 

“So I’ve been told.” I smirk. “By some fool that I hang out with from time to time. We usually go to a bar in Sector Seven, you should go there sometimes..”

“Oh, some fool?” He cackles. “Wait til we get together outside of work, sweetness.” Reno threatens and I put a hand on my hip.

“Why, you gonna steal my husband from me?” I grin. Rude pretends he didn’t just laugh by covering it with a cough, but Reno is shameless as always.

“Don’t gotta steal if I’d take a bite of you both.” Reno winks and I downright choke, grabbing Del’s arm for support. He’s too busy laughing hysterically, to the point where President Shinra actually throws open the door to his office. A woman with blonde hair walks out, looking huffy, like their meeting didn’t exactly go as planned, but she leaves without a word and Shinra just sends Del a mildly irritated look.

“Ahh yes, his royal highness, King Delphinius.” I don’t know Rufus Shinra particularly well. Del seems to have no issues doing business with the man, but the subtle way he talks down to Del, even when addressing him by such a formal title makes me think the man is the worst kind of a twat rocket. 

“President Shinra.” Del nods his head and after nearly a year worth of working with him, I guess it isn’t so unnerving the way he’s able to slip into this perfect caricature of professionalism, but being that I still see Del as a child, I guess it will always at least be a little weird.

“Were you prepared for trouble?” Shinra asks Del while looking straight at me. I fix my lips into a pout.

“Where Del goes, I go, even just to meetings.” I say flatly, trying to leave no room for conversation. Shinra looks at me as though I am a bug on his shoe, which is really quite a treat and I sure don’t want to kick the man in front of me and if I do it’s not because I’m ‘impulsive’ with ‘aggressive tendencies’.

I like to think my therapist is proud of how self aware I am.

“You know how things were last time.” Del laughs blithely, as though absolutely zero that Shinra says can get under his skin. Which seems to effectively get under Shinra’s skin. I’m not really sure why, it’s not like last time we met in Midgar was the most dangerous situation we’ve ever gotten into. Shinra was just mobile at the time, we had to fight off more fiends than we were really expecting and I ended up summoning a couple Floods to get rid of them. I was the only one that got hurt and only because my Unversed did. 

Oh, here it is, my heart hurts a little for Vanitas. 

That’s not ever going away. Not ever. Never will my heart not ache for him or Ventus or Lauriam or anyone or thing we lost. But like a piercing, I heal around the hole and that reminder propels Del, me, Reno and Rude through the doors of Shinra’s office.

He and Del discuss something I don’t understand why I have to be around for, and I’m pretty sure Reno and Rude feel the same way. I think Rufus fucking Shinra is the only person who thinks there is an utter need for body guards in this exchange, despite the words he said to Del. I mean, watching Del convinces me that he could talk his way out of damn near any trouble.

But I get it, I guess. Rebuilding a world sucks, being the President of some big company and having the whole planet fall apart isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time and I can at least exercise enough empathy to make stupid faces at Reno and Rude instead of kicking Shinra in the back of the head every time he says something condescending to Del. Which is often.

“Cool, so we’ll see how that all goes and meet up in what are you thinking, two weeks?” Del asks, scrunching his nose and I stretch out so that my joints pop, feeling almost like a statue after having been stagnant for so long. 

“That sounds adequate.” Shinra agrees.

“Well, don’t miss me too much, gentlemen.” I wink at Reno and Rude. Rude just shakes his head, but Reno grins while I wave my hand and open up a dark corridor. Visibly, Rufus Shinra tenses and before I have time to say anything, Del grabs my arm and tugs me forward. 

“Come on, Rueki.” He flashes me a look as we step through the portal, but doesn’t speak until it closes behind us. “I don’t trust Rufus as far as I can throw him, but he’s very bright and the fact of the matter is, we’re both rebuilding our worlds. Where they fall short is where we succeed and vise versa, it’s a smart partnership, but I’d much rather spend this time working with Joshua. I don’t typically get the feeling he’s going to eat me, but there’s just not a lot from the UG that I can incorporate into the goings on of Radiant Garden.” Del gripes and I shoot him a look, chin bunching up, nose wrinkling.

“Did you seriously just give some petty twink with a god complex a compliment?” I ask.

“You sound awfully like your mom.” Del teases.

“Every time we go to Shibuya he asks why you have to bring your pet pig everywhere you go.” I remind him.

“It’s a joke.” Del says. “Pigs are cute, you’re cute.” He pinches my cheek.

“I think he means it as a fat joke.” I set a hand on my hip, Del shrugs.

“Well, we both know you’re hot, and you’ve seen Joshua’s taste. If Neku’s what he shoots for then technically everyone we know could lose a few pounds.” I hate it when Del makes sense.

“Just don’t make that joke around Neku, I don’t think that even though they’re talking again he loves to be the object of Joshua’s affections.” I encourage. We come out on the other side of Radiant Garden and Del shakes out his arms, looking mildly repulsed, as usual. “Dude, it’s darkness. And you’re the last remaining Princess of Heart. You’re not gonna somehow combust if you get a little extra on you.”

“It feels gross.” He tells me, pursing his lips like he just bit into something particularly disgusting. “And you just keep that all...like stored in your heart.” He sticks his tongue out.

“I mean, it’s that or summon a hoard of Unversed and just make everyone’s life miserable.” I roll my eyes. Del smirks, righting himself.

“I think that’s why Rufus looks at you like that. He hasn’t forgotten that you summoned a shit ton of them last time we got swarmed by fiends.” Del chuckles.

“Well it doesn’t feel particularly good to have them destroyed, so if it makes your life any easier, you can tell your frenemy that they’re a last resort.” I offer. 

“Come on, I like having you as a wildcard up my sleeve.” He winks at me. “Say hi to Roxas for me, okay?” He asks and I cock my head to the side.

“Are you letting me leave early?” I ask.

“I am a great boss.” He nods his head. “It also is Yuffie’s birthday and she won’t let me live it down if I don’t plan something fantastic.”

“Mmm, good girl.” I reply. “What did you get her?” I ask. Del grins wickedly and pulls a box out of the pocket of his blazer. “No shit.”

“Yes shit.” He nods and flicks the box open. There’s nothing about the ring that I like. It’s gaudy, it’s princess cut and it’s yellow gold. But one look at it and I know for a certain that it will make Yuffie scream with delight. “You think she’ll like it?” He asks.

“Pretty damn sure.” I reply. “You do realize that will make my first ever friend a queen?” I don’t think it gets weirder. 

“Well shit, keep talking like that and I won’t make you a groomsman.” Del chuckles. I throw my arms around him and he squeezes me tight.

“I’m so happy for you.” I tell him. “But please don’t make me give a speech at your wedding.” 

“Of course not.” Del says as he releases me. “Emyd’s already agreed to be my best man.”

“Emyd knows before me?” I guess I’m not really shocked about that. Their bromance makes Isa and Lea’s seem painfully platonic. 

“Well yeah, he went ring shopping with me.” Del says, as though that is a very normal thing for two bros to do. I stand there looking at him, trying to find a comment that will properly showcase exactly how I feel about the whole situation, but really, I know it is better saved for a text to Elrena, who will find the whole damn scenario as amusing as I do. Which reminds me, I should probably text her anyway. Not only is it the anniversary of my revival, but the two year anniversary of the death of one of her oldest friends.

“Let me know how it goes.” I squeeze his shoulder. “You guys are great together.”

“Well, she makes me feel the same way Lea said you make him feel. You guys are...you’re good together. The first time I met him, I knew that’s what I wanted. I’m really glad I have that.” Del tells me. 

I hug him tight one more time and wish him luck again, and take off through a dark corridor into Twilight Town.

\--

The Bistro is crowded, I warm a table and Roxas is late. My eyes flick up to the clock, I order drinks for the both of us and then put my elbow into the table and press my palm to my cheek. It’s unlike him to be late but it’s also unlike him to not respond to my texts. I wonder if I should worry, but as it stands right now, my thoughts are more circulated around how long I’m supposed to hang out until I order dessert to go and head to Lea’s. I look down at my phone, at the ‘where are you’ text that, like the one I sent to Roxas this morning, is unanswered. 

Elrena: That is fucking hillarious. Bring his ass when we all grab drinks, I’m not letting him off the hook. 

Elrena: Going ring shopping with his boyfriend before me, he’s lucky he’s insufferably likeable

I bite back a smirk.

‘I thought you didn’t want to get married?’

Elrena: I don’t, but Em rarely does anything wrong and I live for a chance to be petty ;P

I bite back a laugh so I don’t look like the sad girl, getting stood up, laughing at a whole lot of nothing on her phone. 

‘Have I told you that I miss the hell out of you recently?’

Elrena: You have, it makes you sound like a sap. 

Elrena: Delete this message after you respond to it because I’ll deny I sent it, but are you okay?

It’s a fair question. Exactly two years after the war, exactly a year after I came back to life, if it weren’t for the therapy session I had yesterday, unraveling the mess of thoughts my head had become in the buildup, I’d be a lot less okay. But the sheer fact that I’ve been so utterly surrounded by the warmth of those who don’t mind giving just a little so I feel a lot better, sets this day apart. Things are different than they were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. And I have lost things...and people. My hand strays to my heart, where I don’t feel the things I used to and while darkness isn’t being shuttled into me in painful doses, I can’t deny I miss two that used to be thoroughly attached to the link. The first boy I had a crush on, the light of the realm and his pitch black counterpart, my friend, the young man who understood me on levels so deep and intimate it twined us slowly but surely around each other. 

Roxas: Exams ran late. I am SO sorry, be there in 5, I’ll make it up to you

The message gets me out of my own head, and while yes, I have frequent therapy sessions to help me unravel the cluster of my thoughts, it’s dawned on me before but resonates particularly now: I rest a little extra on the shoulders of my friends. On all of them, I give them each a little deeper and a little deeper of access, I’m not dumping the world I don’t want to be leaning hard on any one person and one by one, my friends take my hand, each of them, and they pull me out of my own darkness when it starts to drown me, and lead me straight into the Twilight I’ve learned to own. 

‘I’m good, and I’m seeing Lea tonight :)’ 

I text Elrena, allowing Roxas to go unanswered. 

Elrena: Nauseatingly cute. Let me know if you need me to come beat your ass into shape

‘Trust me, no one else is a challenge ;P you’d be the first to know. How are you?’

Elrena: Last year was harder...Em’s really good with the whole sympathy thing. I know I don’t need to tell you how bad it sucks to lose a good friend. I was thinking it might not be a bad thing to take a trip to Daybreak Town. I know the place is basically a graveyard now, but I liked the setup you did at the Radiant Garden school for the memorial. I wouldn’t hate some company setting one up there.

There’s not even a second’s worth of hesitation.

‘Yes, count me in. Name the time, I’m there.’

I don’t feel superstitious fear of the Foretellers rebirth. I’ve seen the way my heart has mended firsthand, there’s no room for them in the things that have filled the holes.

Elrena: Next weekend then, first thing in the am. 

I send her a thumbs up emoji as the bell of the Bistro’s front door chimes and a huffy looking blond comes in, blotchy faced, a skateboard tucked beneath his arm. His eyes make contact with mine, his whole face lights up, I smile back. His face doesn’t ignite the same trepidation that Sora’s does, but I do still have to remind myself that the only way to stop the old memories from devouring me entirely is to make new ones.

Breathlessly, he slides into the booth across from me, plants his hands on the table then grasps both of mine up. 

“I am so sorry.” Roxas huffs, eyes flicking up to mine. “Do you know I hate math?”

“Oh, I’m aware.” I laugh. “Why are you taking math classes?”

“Gen eds…” He wrinkles his nose. “ So as long as I pass this one I’ll never have to take another math class ever again.” His shoulders heave as he sighs. 

“Well,” I wiggle my hands free from his and grab my mug, which is filled with black coffee. “Let’s toast to you passing your finals.”

He looks at my mug and wrinkles his nose.

“Drinking coffee in the evening?” He asks, but clinks glasses with mine and takes a sip of his soda.

“I know, I’m basically an old lady.” I reply, taking a drink from my coffee. “Del’s basically a slave driver, I need to caffeinate just to make it through dinner.” I pretend to wilt, placing a hand to my forehead. Roxas chuckles and shakes his head. “No Xion or the guys tonight?” I ask. Roxas shrugs.

“Pence and Olette are nose deep in studying, Hayner’s on a date with Jessie from the accessory shop and...Xion and I are taking a break.” Roxas admits. My eyes widen. Well that’s news. Roxas looks the epitome of thankful when the server swoops in to take our order, and I wonder if I’m supposed to ask for details--like I know very well he wouldn’t budge on needing from me-- or if I’m supposed to just let him be. When the server departs, I cup my mug in my flesh hand to feel the warmth.

“You okay?” I ask. He just shrugs again.

“I mean we’re not broken up, broken up. She just thinks we need to see what life looks like outside of each other.” He admits.

“What about you?” Because while Xion doesn’t outright treat me like a leper anymore, we certainly aren’t as close as Roxas and I are. 

“I think she’s right. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t have even kissed her, cuz we were such perfect friends. I think sometimes I ruined it by wanting things to go further. It just felt really right. But she’s got a point. We don’t know what the world looks like outside each other. I just wish it never got to the point where we had to create distance to find ourselves.” His mouth fixes into a pout, I reach across the table with my metal hand, letting the fingers of it curl around Roxas’ thumb. 

“Everyone’s got to, man. I was never gonna talk to Del or Amaya again when I left Transmute City, but when you grow and the people you love grow, even with distance, the parts of you that were close can still come back together.” I try. He looks into his soda.

“I guess I’m just worried that they won’t. It doesn’t really bug me if she doesn’t want to be my girlfriend anymore, that’s fine, I remember you telling us that sometimes two hearts don’t match up and that’s okay. But I don’t...she was my friend first, I don’t want to lose that, I don’t want her to outgrow me completely and she’s so smart and she’s doing so good with the replica program, I’m just so afraid that she’s gonna wake up one day and I’m just gonna be this dumb, impulsive idiot she used to have ice cream with when she had no other options.” Roxas complains. I chew my lips, I realize I don’t have much of an idea how to work through this situation with him, but I squeeze his thumb gently so that his eyes are drawn back to our intertwined hands.

“Well, I can’t be sure of what’s going through her head. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to let her know how important she is to you, not right now but once you give her a little room to breathe. In the meantime, just...take it from someone who spent a lot of damn time in your head when you were growing up, you’re not just some dumb, impulsive idiot. You’re one of my best friends. And maybe you can be an idiot. And impulsive.” I try.

“Wow, you think you’d think you’d have figured out how to give a pep talk after all the therapy you’ve been through.” He gripes and I laugh, yanking his attention back to me. 

“But you are the most loyal, passionate, honest, brave and determined human being I have ever met. So if you maybe jump the gun from time to time and were kind of a dipshit as a teenager then join the club, kid. You’re in really good company. And even if things don’t feel right, don’t ever forget I’m right here with you. Chasing the stars, bunkering down, whatever you need, you know I’m not going anywhere.” I squeeze his thumb again and instead of looking at our hands, he looks at me, right in the eyes, the placid, clear, ocean of his emotions spread wide open for me. 

“You know what’s screwed up?” Roxas asks me, eyes flicking down again. “I don’t even have to feel you in my heart to feel that you mean that.”

And I do. In my bones, in my heart, in the truest form of making new memories to not drown in the old ones, I look at Roxas and I don’t feel unsure or shaky or like helping him up will knock me over. 

The server brings our dishes, we pull apart and stay nearly an hour after our meeting, in the town square while he excitedly shows me tricks on his skateboard and tries to convince me that I wouldn’t have any sort of problem learning how to do it myself.

\--

When I get to Lea’s I skip the front door entirely, finding my way into the backyard where I see him sprawled out in the sand where the seam of his backyard backs up to the beach. His Keyblade is planted in the sand, he has an arm folded beneath his head and he stares up at the hazy clouds as they blur and bleed into the watercolor sky. 

I get close and admire the details I noticed not long ago, a change in his Keyblade just like mine. Just like mine, the handle is a pair of knuckles, the charm that dangles now from it is a tiny, sparking, metal fist, bound by a leather strap. ‘Twin Flame’, he called this new iteration of his Keyblade. Mine still feels like Backbiter to me.

“Marking your territory?” I ask, linking my arms behind my back, leaning down over him so that my chin length hair frames a curtain around my face. The things his face does when he sees me are still baffling, he truly does look so much like a candlelight, all contagious warmth. 

“I’m tired.” He pulls an empty ice cream stick from between his lips. “Cut a guy some slack.” In response, I kneel down, plant both hands on either side of his head and kiss him, a funny, upside down kiss where my nose brushes his chin and my hair tickles his throat. He laughs as I pull away from him. “Hey!” He demands, beckoning me back down with his hand. I grin and kiss him harder, my trepidation from nine months ago so much less prominent as every single day I prove to myself--and we prove to each other--that I don’t need to always take things he doesn’t give, and he doesn’t need to offer me more of himself than is available. I trace my fingers across his jawline when we part, staring dreamily down at him. He adjusts himself, head falling into my lap. His fingers lace through mine and he brings our joint hands down to give my knuckles to kiss.

He is so consuming, he is a fire and I’m always gasoline. I am the perfect storm and he is wreckage looking to be destroyed. But when we take it easy like this, a drizzle, struck match, it’s a heaven where fears and lies melt away.

“Long day then?” I ask.

“Well, I officially made Master.” He winks at me, I gasp and lean down to kiss him.

“You didn’t even tell me you were taking the exam today!” I balk.

“Kind of a spur of the moment thing. Riku stopped up to drop off some stuff, he’s the only one other than Aqua or Terra who’s been Master long enough to give me the title. So, since you weren’t gonna be over in a hurry, I took the exam. Basically means I graduated from student teacher to tenured professor.” He taps my nose.  
`  
“You are precious, omigod, Lea.” I shimmy down, trying to kick up minimal sand in my wake so I can tuck myself into the arm he returns behind his head. The other loops around, grabbing the fabric of my shorts. “I’m so proud of you, Master.” Our eyes meet, a grin creeps onto his face, I giggle.

“We’re gonna hold onto that one for a time that we’re inside.” He assures me. This time, there’s nothing cute about the laughter that spills from my lips.

“Seriously though, you talked about this in the enchanted forest. I’m glad it’s official. But if I’m being honest, I could’ve told you that you had what it took. Strength of heart isn’t an issue for you.” I say, splaying my hand across his abdomen.

“You might know exactly how to sweet talk a guy, Rueks.” He traces patterns across the fabric covering my hip. 

“I’m rather biased when it comes to you.” I agree. “But I wouldn’t be if you weren’t so generally impressive. What did you have to do for your test? Not dive into any sleeping worlds, right?” I ask and he laughs.

“No, wasn’t that a lot of bullshit that Sora and Riku had to go through? No, my exam, if I understand it, was a lot more like Terra and Aqua’s was.” He explains to me, and I know very well, what that exam looked like. I see it through the eyes of two different boys, one with stars in his gaze as his two dearest friends strive to become heroes of legend, one on the outside looking in, wondering what sort of warm, endearing connection between the trio stops them from snatching the victory straight out of the other’s cold, dead hands. My face scrunches up, Lea’s brows come together. “I lost you there for a second.”

“Sorry. Ven and Vanitas both have memories of that. Without the empathy link I can’t sense the present, but it doesn’t mean I can’t recall the past.” I admit. But he knows, and expertly, Lea brings me in a little closer.

“What do you need from me?” He asks. 

“To tell me more.” I admit. “About your exam, about how you’re going to gloat to everyone with ears that you’ve finally made Master, about how you’re gonna pose in the picture I take of you and slap on Kingstagram with a big, sappy, gushy caption about how my amazing husband is a Keyblade Master.” 

“A big, sappy, gushy caption?” He asks. I nod, unshaken.

“Mmmhmm.” I reply. “What sounds better: the human embodiment of the divine, or the man my soul finds home inside?”

“You are such a fucking ham.” He teases, I shift onto my stomach so that we lay chest to chest and I can look him straight in the eye. “How’s Roxas? How’s Reno?” 

“Roxas is good, I guess he and Xion are taking a break? Something about needing to find themselves outside of each other, I think he’s more scared about the idea of losing one of his friends than he is having an actual breakup.” I admit.

“Well that sucks. But Xion did mention wanting to try to figure out what it felt like to just follow her heart and dreams without worrying how it affected someone else.” Lea says. And I guess ‘that sucks’ really is all that can really be said about the situation. I drop it there and think over what else Lea asked. 

“Oh yeah, Reno’s good, he wants to know when we’re getting drinks together. Elrena and I are going to Daybreak Town next weekend, maybe we can go with him after that if he and Rude don’t work?” I suggest.

“Sure, whatcha guys going to Daybreak Town for?” He asks, so easily, so steadfast and sure of me and so unlike the man that cornered me in our bedroom and begged me not to fall to Xigbar.

“I think she wants to do something to memorialize Lauriam. And probably some of the people she remembers being friends with. She asked if I wanted to help her and do something for Ven and Vanitas, and I definitely want to.” I explain.

“Are you gonna be okay?” He brushes some hair behind my ear. “I can come with you if you think you might need some support.” He offers. I cock my head to the side in contemplation.

“Are you okay playing it by ear? Right now it sounds really exciting, but if Emyd comes with us, I’ll definitely want you to. And if I get up that morning and it doesn’t feel like a fun trip, then yeah, I’m uh...would it be okay if I stay the night here that night? Just to be sure that I can manage?” I ask, chewing on my lip. Lea flattens a hand out across my back.

“You know, I’ve been kind of thinking about that.” He replies, my nose scrunches up.

“Am I here too much?” I ask, because I know I'm not by my standards, not at all, but I’m making it a point to not tell him to speed up when he asks me to slow down because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d offer me the same, that he has offered me the same these past nine months that we’ve lived separate and taken things easy, taken things slow, taken things at a pace that made obvious how breakneck and impossible our previous speed was, when this feels so saccharine, every second of every moment we spend together.

“How about you reach into the pocket of my vest, sweetheart?” He offers, my cheeks grow hot.

“Dude, we’re already married, you can’t propose to me a second time!” In insist, eyes flying wide and he tosses his head somehow further back into the sand, laughing.

“Can’t you just follow orders?” He teases.

“Pointedly, no! You know that, I’m getting better at talking now, I never said anything about listening, especially because I’m pretty sure you spent money you didn’t have to on me!” I insist.

“I don’t have to do a damn thing, Rueks, I do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want. Now hand in my pocket.” He orders. I huff, and reach into his pocket, feeling a very pointed velvet box, a box that he doesn’t need to give me because taking the step to wear our wedding rings again was one we decided on nearly six months ago. “Oh just open the box, Rueks.” I do, I open it up and blink as I look at a small silver key with a chain hooked through the hole.

“This is a key.” I say, like a super smart person.

“To the house. This house.” Lea and I make eye contact, I look at him like a big, dumb idiot. “This is me asking you to move in with me.”

“Oh!” My Lipe part as I look into the box.

“Is this...too much?” Lea asks and I shake my head.

“No I…” I chew my lips. “You’re not doing this cuz you think I expect you to, are you?”

“No.” He scoffs, like the mere idea is so silly, but I realize and I’m sure he does, that it wasn’t long enough ago that he would have trampled his own wants for me and I wouldn’t have even had the decency to check in with him. “No, baby, I am doing this because the longer we make this work, the longer we’re together, the more I realize I want you to not leave. The more times I kiss you goodbye, the more I realize I don’t want to, the more days I wake up and text you, I really just want to be waking up beside you.” He tells me, making my heart flutter with words alone. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Like a long while, and I didn’t just want to dive in for both of us, I didn’t want to ruin a good thing cuz I was lonely, but it’s not that. I just love you, and I don’t want our time together to come to an end.”

I stare down at the key. I hold a hand out, extended away from Lea and I. He blinks as he watches me summon Backbiter into my hand. Then, I jam it into the sand, cramming it down next to his.

“Rueks?” He asks and I smirk, looking up at him, snatching the key on the necklace chain out of the box.

“Marking my territory.” I tease. “This is my home too.”

He laughs and scoops me up, pushing me to his chest so tight that there couldn’t possibly be a doubt in my mind saying he wants me anywhere but right here. He presses his lips to mine and rolls me into the sand, lips so soft and warm against mine.

“Thank Twilight. It sure would’ve been awkward if you said no and saw the space I cleared for you in the closet and the dresser.” Lea smiles this cute, lopsided smile at me, but my heart twitches for a very different reason.

“You already cleared space for me?” I ask.

“That would be what gets you going.” He shakes his head. I twist my arms around his neck. 

“Take me to our room, I want to see.” And I delight in saying that. Our room. Our home, and as my eyes flick back to the house, it doesn’t look as daunting as the other one. He teleports us into the bedroom and I pound a fist back onto the--

The bed. He set me on the bed, probably a smart bet. I gulp down air desperately as I try to get my bearings.

“You lie, I’m never getting used to that.” I complain as I sit up on the edge of the bed. “Also, how is it so cold in here, it’s not this cold outside.”

“Gonna have to get you some more blankets.” Lea decides, getting one out of the now half empty closet. My eyes have stars in them, I’m way too delighted by the way all of his clothes are pushed to the right side of the closet, as are his shoes. The divider is a black leather trench coat, so I stop him.

“Not a blanket, baby. I want that.” I point at the jacket, he lifts an eyebrow.

“Yeah?” He asks, but sets the blanket back above the clothes, gathers up the coat and wraps it around my shoulders. The hood droops over my head, brushing my nose, which he kisses. I laugh and push the hood back down.

“It smells like you.” Is my explanation. 

“It always did look better on you than on me.” He says, smoothing my hair down my cheek. “Wanna see the dresser?” He asks, I shake my head.

“In a minute.” I bite my lip, beckoning him down to kiss me again. He leans over, setting a knee on one side of me, body curling deliciously to meet mine. I wrap my arms around his neck, savoring the taste of him on my mouth, the smell of him so heady and delicious in the air. I savor the dim lighting of this bedroom that never seems to fully brighten but makes it eternally cozy. I kiss him and think of the oak dresser and which drawers will be mine and where I’ll put my leggings versus where I’ll put my jeans. I wonder what the pale yellow kitchen will look like in the early afternoon when we settle in on lazy weekends where we don’t get out of bed until late in the day. I wonder what it will feel like to put up decorations for the holidays. I wonder how frustrated I will get tucking the fitted sheets beneath this deliciously plush mattress or where I will place my books. Lea sets his hands down on either side of me, I hum into the kiss, scooting back into the bed as he crawls up further into it. “We have a minute, right?” I breathe as we part, gasping for air, lips bumping and brushing and with Lea’s heat, I don’t feel so cold, I don’t feel frozen down into my bones when he’s always in them, in my heart, between my lungs, blazing in the creeping light through the window cracks of the setting sun.

“We have a lot of minutes.” He promises me and he fills me like oxygen as I lie back and his weight settles onto me. He kisses me sweetly, kisses me with curiosity, peeling my lips apart with a proding tongue and gentle teeth until my mouth parts for him and the soft rolling of his tongue floods me. I groan, because there’s something about the closeness, something about the way Lea swipes the inside of my cheek, the soft part beneath my tongue, the roof of my mouth in the spot that tickles, that has me mewling, hips wiggling against his. We part for breath, his forehead and nose pressed still against mine as I taste his inhale and exhale. “Those noises you make when I kiss you…” There’s nothing more he has to say, I feel his erection press into my hip and like always, it’s so tempting. I want to flip him onto his back and ride him hard and fast, animalistic and depraved, but there’s something about him in the low lighting, in a bed that’s not just his but ours, wrapped up in a coat I know I will wear with the frequency and fondness of a robe. 

“It’s cuz I love you.” I say like it’s the cleanest, clearest thing in the world. He shifts off of me, I don’t even have more than a second to process the lack of his weight on me. He grabs the edges of his--our--coat and flips me over so that we’re laying chest to chest again and I feel the rise and fall in his heartbeat. He unbuckles my shorts, I shimmy them down my hips, he cocks his head to the side as he looks at my panties.

“These are new.” He says, something about that statement makes me feel more innocent than I am, or maybe it’s the way he hooks his fingers around the straps on the side and pulls them just far enough down my hips to expose my pussy. He strokes his fingers up the side of the lips and I shiver, grabbing onto his bicep like a vice. “I like these.” He tells me as he pulls them further down my legs and I kick them off. He kisses my mouth again, rubbing his tongue across my lower lip, I cup his face in my hands then work those hands back into the thick strands of his hair, keeping him close to me. I suck his tongue into my mouth, whining when it is properly between my lips so that he feels the humming vibration radiating off of me, feels the physical effect of those little noises I make all the way into his bones. When we part, his eyes are darker, blown out, pupils wide and lusty, lids hanging heavy. He peels off his fingerless gloves and hikes one of my thighs onto his hip.

There it rests as two fingers glide right inside of me. He buries them deep and kisses a spot just behind my ear that may well ruin me.

“Baby.” He hums into my ear as his thumb brushes my clit. I hiss as I inhale and feel his lips curl up into a grin against my skin. “You’re so beautiful.” And I don’t know how he can possibly know that, because his face is buried in the crook of my neck, sucking down from my jaw to my shoulder, pushing aside the straps of my top, stretching them to their limit so that he can have more. And his hands? His hot, huge hands work into me, pumping in and out, slick, sexy sounds puncturing the air between our moans. He grinds his clothed cock into the thigh that rests on the bed and every breath I take is filled with Lea.

Filled with the way he kisses me, hungry and needy, so eager for as much skin as I will let him devour. Filled with the feeling of him circling and teasing my sensitive, overheated clit with a thumb that knows my body deeply, intimately. The wetness that spills out of my slit as he works into me is gathered by that thumb and worked around my nub in this beautiful, slippery mess that has me fluttering, at the very edge of shattering around the thick fingers inside of me. And oh those fingers, they reach, claiming each part inside of me as their own, stretching and swirling. My fingernails bite into his bicep, he grunts against my shoulder, cock bumping my thigh and I tip over the edge, clenching tight around him, clinging to his arm as I choke on his name.

The muscles in my stomach and chest sputter, the air around us is so cool but between Lea and the heat radiating between my legs the differentiation in sensations sets my nerve endings on fire.

“Omigod, get these off.” I beg, hands finding his belt before his fingers are fully out of me. When they come out, with this sweet, wet popping noise, he sucks them into his mouth and I’m somehow expected to remain coherent as he moans around the taste of me on his fingers. My face is on absolute fire, I toss his belt aside and then yank his jeans off of his hips, thankful that somewhere along the line, he discarded his boots. I kick mine off and tug my top over my head, casting it onto the floor of the--our room. 

The way Lea looks at me will never not be overwhelming. One hand rests on the curve of my waist, brushing that very first scar on my ribs from Shibuya.

“Do you realize that you actually sparkle in the sun?” He asks me, and it’s not the first time he’s implied it, but the shiny white of the knotted scars on my body do seem to shimmer in the light peeking through the blinds. 

“I have to sparkle. You fucking glow all the time.” I come down onto him, straddling his waist. My lips brush his, my fingers come up under the hem of his shirt. He sighs at the cool brush of my metal hand and I marvel at his body, his fucking perfect body. It makes more sense to just kiss him again, no amount of words I could ever say would begin to describe how sexy I find him, so instead I just sink down onto the length of his cock. Said perfect abdomen muscles shudder, he groans loudly, eyes wide, pupils huge as he is fully sheathed and I work slowly up and back down his length. He hisses, head falling back into a pillow as my hips rock and I watch his cock disappear into me. 

We move like the ocean outside, the current chasing one high into the next. And it’s like this, so vulnerable, so open wide that I feel his soul and register that he feels mine. My heart aches so deeply in my chest, I gasp and plant my hands on his chest, just to feel the closeness that I know I need.

“Fuck, Rueki.” He moans and I catch my breath. He’s here, I’m here, I haven’t even lost my pace or track of the way my sensitive core aches each time I draw away and sink back down onto him. He bucks his hips, desperate for a pace that I can’t and haven’t set. I chew my lips, I squeeze Lea’s arm. 

“Baby, you’ve gotta be on top for that.” And it’s not like I haven’t had to say that before. It’s not like my fucking legs haven’t given us trouble before, but Lea takes it all in stride. Always. He flips us so that we’re chest to chest again, my leg hitched onto his waist without even pulling out of me, and then he starts to pound into me. I gasp, a whining noise coming from my lips. He’s so close, every move he makes brushes our damp skin. My nipples to his, my stomach to his, my arms against his. And then---

Then when it’s just too much and I’m screaming, feeling like something in my chest is going to burst, he comes, twitching and jerking until he stills inside of me. And then he holds me, his lips on my forehead, his arms around my body. I sigh, setting my head on his chest, rocking it against him so that he realizes how close to him I’m enjoying being. 

We stay like this, heavy and settled for...well for a long time. When my eyelids flutter back open, the bedroom is dark, only the light of the moon shining into the room breaks up the blackness. I hum softly, Lea peeks an eye open and smiles softly.

“Why did I know you were waking up too?” He asks.

“Because you’re my soulmate.” I grin and sometimes it’s odd to think how connect we both have become to something we didn’t realize existed not long ago. But the registering of the otherworldly connection separates who we are and what we need versus what that connection demands. And in that awareness comes…

Not peace. That would be too much to expect. But it does bring us solidarity. And that might feel better.

“Do you want ice cream?” I ask and he laughs a little too loud for the stillness in the room. I like it, how it fills the air like a roaring fire.

“I love you.” Is his answer. We crawl off the bed, me wrapping the coat around my body as he retrieves a pair of sweats from the dresser and pulls them on. We head into the kitchen and I twist, looking out the window at the moon. The moon that isn’t in the shape of a heart, but mine burns with in all ways. In the friendship I have found with a man so controlled by it, in the light and dark that fill it and my heart and how I loved them both so deeply that I can’t ever not be thankful for the very balance of twilight itself.

The moon that reminds me of the adventures I’ve had and the night I thought it all began when a boy touched down in his Gummi Ship in Transmute City. Or the night it really all began when I fought heartless with a pair of scissors along with the man who hands me ice cream now.

I don’t know what time we settle onto the couch and fall asleep with a movie going, leaning against each other. I just know it’s light again when we wake up and Lea is stroking my hair.

“Morning.” He whispers against me and my heart clenches. This is what my life feels like now, this is what forever feels like now.

“Good morning.” I say back.

“Have any nightmares?” He asks, because he always asks, because he knows and he always checks. Because he loves me as much as I love him.

“Not last night.”

Not regularly. Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd that's it. Damn. Two plus years on a project and I realize I have no idea what to say except thank you for every single one of you reading this. This project was started for me but finished for you, everyone who read, who left kudos, who left a nice comment. Every single one of you mean the world to me and I'm so thankful that you shared on Rueki's journey with me.


End file.
